Random thoughts, Episode 2

I enjoyed writing my last "Random Thoughts" post so much, I'm going back to the well.
--> My homeboy Conan O'Brien is back on TV. After being exiled from NBC, he's back with a new latenight show on TBS. As a longtime CoCo fan, his Monday night debut had me pretty stoked. The ginger-haired comedy genius seemed hyper, nervous and excited all at the same time during his monologue, which was both understandable and interesting to watch. But the skits were excellent - both the video recapping his last six months, where he was repeatedly shot Godfather-style by a band of machine gun-toting mafiosos, and the Ricky Gervais guest spot. Conan had two particularly memorable lines. More or less the first words out of his mouth were, "Welcome to my second annual first show." Later on, he dropped the following gem: "It's not easy doing a late-night show on a channel without a lot of money that viewers have trouble finding. So that's why I left NBC." Bazinga.
Here's an interesting look at the impact of O'Brien's debut, via the L.A. Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/11/conan-obrien-grabs-42-million-viewers-in-tbs-premiere.html
--> After Week 1 of the NFL season, I set the over-under on when Dallas Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips would be fired at 3.5 games. If you took the over, you made money - Phillips lasted seven more games before Jerry Jones axed him following Sunday's 45-7 debacle against Green Bay. In the end, my line was a little aggressive, but I definitely had the right idea.
--> Just how much do I despise B.C. sports teams? Consider the following: I was actively rooting against my favourite CFL team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, when they were playing the Edmonton Eskimos this past Saturday. My logic, such as it was, was that a Riders win would knock the Eskimos out of the playoff race, thereby paving the way for the B.C. Lions to claim the third and final postseason slot in the West. My wife and I actually had a mild argument about this - she felt I should have been supporting the Riders, because they needed to snap their four-game losing streak prior to the playoffs. I just couldn't set aside my anti-B.C. bias. And wouldn't you know it, my Riders screwed me, beating Edmonton to let the Lions in the back door. You better believe I hate Saskatchewan's chances in the West semifinal vs. B.C. this Sunday.

--> The whole saga surrounding Randy Moss's release by the Minnesota Vikings last week was amazing and surreal, and nobody was more entertained by it than I was. Reason being, I had traded Moss in my fantasy football keeper league two weeks prior, netting a pair of high picks in next year's draft. Moss had been one of my keepers for four seasons. We'd had some good times, even celebrating a fantasy league title together (in a manner of speaking), but I picked the perfect time to cut bait with the head-case wideout. Not that I don't think that Moss will be an impact guy in Tennessee - in fact, I think he will - but he's officially entered the stage of his career where he's not a keeper in our pool. He's entered the Terrell Owens zone - diminishing talents, and too tempermental to be reliable on a week-to-week basis.
--> I went out of my way to avoid finding out any results from the World Series of Poker main event final table, in order to enjoy Tuesday night's broadcast in a greater way. I unfollowed PokerNews on Twitter. I turned off the radio every time they mentioned the WSOP. Then on Sunday I went to ESPN.com's front page, and right there near the top was a headline naming the two players who had gotten to heads-up. Thanks a million, ESPN. I have since found out who ended up winning, but I won't reveal that in this space yet, in case some of you were saving it for the broadcast.
--> If you read my last post, you might recall I won $1,000 grinding sit-n-gos on PokerStars in October. Well, I blew off half of that in the first week of November. I can't even complain I ran bad. I just played awful - as awful as I've played in the last couple years. I definitely got unlucky at times, but the bigger problem was, I rarely put myself in a position to win. So many decisions I made were wrong. Motivation-wise, I was often playing just for something to do, not because I was stoked to compete. At times like these, I really believe God is telling me to take a break from poker. So that's what I'm doing, at least until Friday. On the bright side, I finished second at my monthly home-game tournament. But online, I'm playin' like a donkey. A break is just the ticket.
Bankroll = $5,500

Insanity in Sask.

Yikes.
It's hard to know what to make of the Saskatchewan Roughriders these days. At the start of the season, they looked like the best team in the CFL in winning their first three games. The offence looked unstoppable, and Darian Durant looked like the best QB in the league.
Looks can be deceiving, for sure, and the Riders crapped the bed on several occasions in dropping four of their next seven games. Inexplicable losses - to the hapless Edmonton Eskimos on Aug. 28, and a brutal 31-2 capitulation against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 12 - became the norm.
Then came Friday's home game against the Calgary Stampeders, the CFL's best team. The outcome is best described with a paraphrase from that cinema classic, Dumb and Dumber: Just when you think they can't get any stupider, they go and do something like this . . . AND TOTALLY REDEEM THEMSELVES!
Well, total redemption might be putting it a little strong. Durant was in a brutal slump coming in, having thrown three TDs and 10 picks in his previous six games. He put up some crazy numbers on Friday, throwing for 495 yards. But he threw a pick-six on Saskatchewan's first possession, and made a couple head-scratching decisions down the stretch.
Ultimately, Durant got the Riders into position to beat the Stamps in regulation, galloping away on an electrifying scramble to get into field goal range with the score tied 37-37 and just a couple ticks on the clock.
But this is where the game got strange. In what is sure to become a huge talking point in Saskatchewan for the next couple days, Riders coach Ken Miller sent punter Eddie Johnson out to try to boot the ball through the end zone for a single point. His excellent field goal kicker, Luca Congi, is pretty much automatic from 35 yards, which is the kick he would have been looking at. Needless to say, Johnson's punt was short and Calgary ran the ball out of the end zone, forcing OT.
Now, I generally think Miller provides the Riders with above-average coaching. He is one of the CFL's best. But on this call, he must have been smoking some powerful peyote.
Not to worry, though - the Riders won in OT. Sheer madness. Only in the CFL, right?

RANDOM NFL OBSERVATIONS:
Sunday's best highlight was Randy Moss scorching Darrelle Revis for a long TD, on a ridiculous one-handed catch, no less. Who's the slounch now? . . . LaDainian Tomlinson is the best running back on the New York Jets roster . . . Reports of the Indianapolis Colts' demise have been greatly exaggerated . . . The Seattle Seahawks came back to earth, big time, in Game 2 of the Pete Carroll era. I think that's more along the lines of what we can expect from the Seahawks this season . . . Cleveland Browns fans were utterly unsurprised by Derek Anderson's horrendous bed-crapping against Atlanta . . . Hard to tell who's more overrated: the Dallas Cowboys or Tony Romo. It's kind of crazy, but it seems like a lack of discipline is almost part of the culture in Cowboy-land . . . The over-under on Wade Phillips's tenure as Cowboys coach is 3.5 games . . . Aside from Minnesota Vikings fans, the only folks worried about Brett Favre's slow start to the season are fantasy football leaguers who drafted him three rounds too high. The rest of us just think it's funny . . . Speaking of fantasy football, all those "experts" who were horny for Joe Flacco in the preseason better be updating their resumes.