Riddle Me This, Jishman

I want to be a Matzo (wo)man!

With all the negative press the White House has been getting lately with Dick Cheney shooting his friend, the Abramoff scandal, the resignation of Andrew Card as Chief of Staff and the War on Terrorism, I can understand why the President and Vice-President would want to get away for a few days.

The President has gone to Cancun, Mexico to have a summitt on immigration with President Fox. While I believe this is an excellent dialogue between the US and Mexico, could we pick a more business like enviornment? I mean, who wants to really talk about work in Cancun?

As for the Vice-President, USA Today reports that he has a long list of items that he demands from hotels when he is on the road. Among his items is Diet Sprite, and all TVs turned to Fox News, and Fox News only.

If only I could get hotels to greet me with cold beer and the TV tuned to ESPN

Now for the bad side of the NFL rule changes… and besides ESPN, here’s the Washington Post’s article:

The Intriguing decision was to once again, limit the TD celebrations of players… as pointed out in Jishman’s Dumbass of the Week (thank God he got rid of the dummys) {all quotes are from the ESPN article above}

• Limited celebration: Perhaps the most controversial decision involved end zone celebrations. A few years ago, the committee tried to clamp down on excessive end zone celebrations, particularly in light of Joe Horn’s touchdown celebration with a cellphone and Owens signing a football with a Sharpie after a touchdown. But in 2005, numerous creative celebrations crept back into the game.

“I think it’s needed,” San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer told The Associated Press. Schottenheimer is entering his 21st season, most of any current head coach. “The game is about the team, not the individual.”

Wrong, Marty, the game is about selling tickets, making money and creating fan base… I.E.: “Make it fun and they will come!” (I must admit, as stupid as that quote sounds, and as blantant a rip off of Field Of Dreams as it is, the sentiment is true). Look at some of the things the NFL is complaining about:

Chad Johnson of the Bengals gave CPR to a football after a touchdown, went down on a knee after a touchdown and proposed marriage to a cheerleader and pulled out an end zone pylon and pretended to hit a golf shot with it. Steve Smith of the Panthers did an end zone Snow Angel, went to the ground and did a rowboat celebration and cradled a football like a baby and wiped its bottom as if it needed more diapers.

THESE ARE FUNNY!!!!! and they are fun…and we all talk about them… in our fantasy leagues, at work, with our friends, our kids, after religious services, etc. As much as the NFL hates to let these guys have fun because it shows up the other team… or in Marty Schottenheimer’s 1950s archaic view, promotes the individual… where is the harm in that?!

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In a win-win situation for the NFL, down by contact fumbles can now be reviewed and over turned!

• Replay changes: Perhaps the biggest victory of the competition committee was the inclusion of down-by-contact plays on replay challenges. Last year, the committee fell four votes short of getting down by contact plays included. This year, it passed, 27-5.

Pereira said there were 12 plays in 2005 that would have been overturned in a replay challenge on a lost fumble that was ruled down because the player had been downed after contact with a defensive player. If the defensive team wins the challenge, the ball would go to them at spot of the recovery. In 2004, about 13 change of possessions would have been made in favor of the defensive team that recovered.

How many times as a fan have we all yelled at the TV in one of these scenarios because it blatantly was a fumble?! A lot. This will change the scope of the game and actually correct human error in a game changing manner! Kudos to the owners on this one.

In the same vein, the owners have reduced replay time from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. Will it make much of a difference? To the game; probably not… To the TV stations ability to make another piece of income with a 30 second commercial; yup!

Another loss…. I am 0-3 in picking the loser of the American idol contest.

But then again, Jishman thought Kellie Pickler was going home… sorry, but you lose…she stays.

ACE YOUNG is the new ANWAR ROBINSON except Anwar actually had singing talent, he was just annoyingly happy; always! But sooner or later and I may be 0-6 or 0-7 by then, but sooner or later, Ace Young is going home and rightfully so….

But I have figured it out….the “Acettes” listen to Paula Abdul and hit redial constantly for two hours so that Ace won’t go home… but sooner or later, even the “Acettes” won’t be able to save his sorry Arse from elimination.

Woohoo!! I love VH1!

That these people believed it was okay to be beaten or that it was women deciding this was satisfactory. Seriously, 30% believed it was okay to be beaten for having burned the food! If that happened, the pizza rule would never have come into existence, and we’d have no “Dr. BadDoc”.

We really do live in a strange world.

1.) Julian Tavarez — So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. First, Tavarez tagged Gathright, then he stepped on his arm, then he slugged him while Gathright was trying to get up. No, Mr. Tavarez, this isn’t just another case of being competitive. Nor is this a case of me hating the Red SAWX. This is a case of being stupid, and he should be mocked about it, first, then, second, suspended for a month.

2.) the No-Fun-League (NFL) banning post-TD dancing — Now, don’t get me wrong, so many, SO MANY of them sucked this past year, but Chad Johnson putting the football using the end zone marker was genius! The NFL banning props is fine, I suppose, what with Joe Horn’s cell phone and TO’s sharpie incident, but it definitely is yet another case of “The Man” keeping the players down for the supposed benefit of the game.

3. ) Barry Bonds — Yes, I know, I know, I could dedicate this column to him, and no one would mind, but Barry, I can promise you, your life is not in shambles. If you did it, then your records won’t be worth squat if they figure it out. If you didn’t do it, then you should prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you didn’t do it. Otherwise, you’re making a CRAPLOAD of money to play a game very few people can do well. Plus, you really haven’t done much to make us like you in the last decade or so, so that your life is in shambles is a shame, but trust me, I don’t care. Give away all your money to charity, and I’ll say well done, but if you cheated, you should have to pay all the money back from all the families who came to see you play ball with interest.

Bitterness aside, those are our Dumbasses of the week. 100% True Blue, Prime, USDA Dumbasses!

Before I get started, I am now offering a weekly poll. Click over to my blog site and vote on who you think will be voted out tonight! (You may need to sign in to Yahoo to vote)

As we learned last week, I am now 0-2 in the final twelve… I am seeing a new trend. The week after I predict someone to go…they end up going home… meaning, I am ahead of my time, right?! If that is the case… Bucky goes home tonight… although he shouldn’t because it’s a singing competition and you base your vote on one song… and last night, he was..eh…okay.

New Rule for American idol: DO NOT LET the contestants pick their own songs… oh yeah, it was that bad… but it did shake up who is feeling safe these days!

Over at the Washington Post, they say this:

Ace Young seems to think he’s good-looking. Toward the end of a song called “Drops of Jupiter,” by Train, when he got to a line that rhymed “star” with “scar,” he tugged open his shirt to show a scar on his right pectoral. Paula gushed that “one day, you’ll have to explain to me how you got that one,” sending Randy and Simon immediately into a Defcon 4 alert. Must keep Paula’s hands off male contestants, must keep Paula’s hands off male contestants . . .

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So, with Sujal’s post over at Fatmixx about Vegan Firefighters over in Austin, I clearly felt like I needed to “get my Veggie on”.

Randy Johnson?

The only reason we are going to see this movie is so that my wife can see George Clooney ~~~~~ Please save me!!!!

Haven’t we all (er, I mean men) suffered enough already?!

I love articles like this (courteousy of my friend, Avi). While the article itself is ridiculous enough, when you scroll to the bottom of the page, you find something even more ridiculous. “Oklahoma man asks the Reg to TURN OFF the INTERNET”!!!!

God, I love my country. Fun for hours! Hope everyone had a good weekend.

I must say, my taxes were done back in February and I already have gotten my tax refund.

But, for many of us, tax day is still on the horizon. After paying my fee to have my taxes prepared, I contemplated doing them myself next year.

If you have purchased a computer program to do your taxes, read this article.

Turbo Tax computed a refund of $1,000 more than the others. But the two accounting firms, which I might add were much closer on the refund number, both discovered Aaron had made some mistakes with the computer software — mistakes that might have led to a government audit.

It turns out those two firms agree on many other things.

H & R Block’s Ron Price told me, “The tax code is complicated”.

“It’s not always black and white,” said Mark Gilbert of Gary A. York & Associates.

“It’s very feasible that two competent preparers will come up with two different answers,” added Price.

It turns out the difference between the two preparers was about $186. I am not saying that computer programs are wrong but this article does reinforce one issue for me… I have neither the time or inclination to learn what the gray area of the tax code is from year to year.

I may be taking the easy way out but I think I am going to stay with my current tax preparer.

Last week, Minnesota secured Steve Hutchinson by putting a “poison pill” in his contract. A “poison pill” (for those who don’t know) is a provision that makes it impossible for the current team to match the offer sheet for the player and virtually guarantees the offering team of gaining the player.
Washington did it to the NY Jets a few years ago and last week, The Vikings forced Seattle to give up a talented player by adding one to Hutchinson’s Contract: (quote from ESPN link below)

It should be recalled that, when the Vikings signed Hutchinson to his offer sheet, they wrote into the deal a provision that guaranteed the full contract if the star guard was not the highest paid lineman on the team. The Vikings knew that Seattle could not match the offer, since Pro Bowl left tackle Walter Jones has a contract that averages more than Hutchinson’s deal.

IT LOOKS LIKE SEATTLE HAS STRUCK BACK!!!!

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