Hockey Rocks

So last month we went to a hockey game and got to have an amazing experience. Last month you say? Yeah I forgot about it until now because I'm too busy writing about kids and wives and blah blah blah. No this post isn't about the kid either. Ya know what? March is OUR month so BACK OFF! Can't we have one month without Kid pictures, especially since next month is her birthday and you'll get millions? Yeah, yeah... I know, you want V. Next month, I promise that you'll get tons of Kid pictures.

We walk into this minor league hockey game in Kent and 8 seconds after we get in, a guy comes up and asks if we want to be part of the intermission entertainment. After considering the safety and legal ramifications of such a crazy endeavor, we ask what we're going to do. He says "Ride tricycles." We decided that they were going to have to pay us first said "HECK YEAH!" So they give us instructions and we tell no one else in our group. So just before the first intermission we head down to the floor. They give us helmets, we sign damage waivers, meet our competition, get a run through of the course and then get lead out to the ice. The fans scream their delight as they've never seen two more attractive people grace the ice as we. Below is a frame by frame remake of the carnal thrashing that we laid upon the mortals that challenged us:

This guy asks me if I think we're going to win. I ask him "Is Jeremy sarcastic?" He agrees that we're going to win pretty soundly.

The picture is blurry because April is breaking the sound barrier.

She's smiling because she smells the Wing Dome buffalo wings we're going to win in approximately 2.74 minutes.

The bird kicks the cone out of my way. We're so fast that I have time to get off my trike, punch him out and I'm still ahead.

As I cross the finish line victoriously, April runs into my arms and kisses me maniacally. This is the typical response from her after I do anything insane.

As we accept our reward, the bird comes back for revenge. I won't show you the pictures but April totally Crane kicks him into next week.

It's Football Season

Yes Friends, we interrupt this marriage to bring you: Football Season. You want to know the best thing about the Football Season? Well, I ain't waiting for you to answer. It's announcers! Everyone's favorite part! It's probably the most fun you'll ever have: Just sitting there with a beer in one hand, some tailgater food in the other and listening to the asinine things that announcers say every Sunday in the National Football League. You loved it when we talked about it in April, well here we are in the season and it's time to go over the next three things you need to do in order to succeed as a Sports Announcer:

Four: Nothing is absolute. Even if you just said something like "The Saints won the Super Bowl last year." That's not absolute. You're never entirely sure. If you say "That was definitely defensive holding," if the replay show's that it wasn't, go ahead and change your mind! You get paid $800,000 to speak your opinion. If it was wrong, there's nothing in your contract that says you can't change your mind. Besides it's more important to be right than it is to look like an idiot. If you're looking at a great example of this, watch any game Phil Simms calls. I guarantee you'll see a shining example in the first 3 minutes of the first quarter.

Five: When you're asking questions to a player or coach, be annoying. Ask the most annoying question you can fathom. If a quarterback just lost the Super Bowl, ask something like "How does it feel to lose the single biggest game of your career?" They have to answer it. They're on National Television and they'll give you the generic answers "Well, the other team played great and they deserved to win and BLAH BLAH BLAH." This happens unless the player or coach has an actual personality or is extremely angry. Then you get such gems as "I'M A MAN! I'M 40!" or "THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!" and "PLAYOFFS?"

Six: Laugh at all humor attempts your co-announcer tries. You want them to do them to do the same for you right? If you fail to laugh at them just once, the next time you insert a zinger into your commentary: Dead Air. You look like a total Chump just like your co-host did. Also, make sure your laughter sounds genuine. Nothing's worse then a fake laugh to make the viewers uncomfortable. John Madden ultimately had to retire because people would laugh heartily at his attempts to be funny but it would take him 45 minutes to react to his co-host's attempts. Be timely and you'll sound like a true Sports Announcer.

The NFL Draft

The first round of the 2010 NFL Draft was today. It's hilarious folks. Seriously, have you ever watched it? It's 10-15 lucky chumps that get paid to talk experts that wax eloquent about the prospect of a college athlete making their future NFL teams into much better NFL teams. Here's an actual quote (almost): "If this guy does the same or better than he did in college, there's no reason to doubt that he won't make it in the National Football League." What does that mean?

There are three things that you need to do in order to succeed as TV Sports Announcer:
One: Say all acronyms completely. None of this NFL, MLB or SCUBA junk; You hammer out National Football League, Major League Baseball or Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Try this one and watch yourself get smoked by some Foo. "Hey didn't the National Aeronautics and Space Administration increase all of their Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act paperwork because a Central Intelligence Agency worker stole an Automated Teller Machine and contracted Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus?" Yeah, that's right... you're the coolest.

Two: Talk in extreme hyperbole and generalities. Use words like: upside, value and potential to describe someone good and downside, issues and gamble to describe someone bad. Say things like: "This wildly entertaining defensive back has the strength of 1,000 men and if he stays positively healthy is going to be a great value, but if he's hit with a devastating or debilitating injury his potential will be severely limited causing people to insatiably wonder if this hugely controversial pick was a gamble that could result in an earthquake of epic proportions."

Three: Learn the language. There's a lingo that goes along with the "sports world." Start sentences with "You talk about..." and then insert what ever the heck everyone else has been saying about the subject for the last 20 years and you're money. When you agree with someone, you can't just agree with a simple "I agree." You have to say almost the exact thing that the person you're agreeing with said; but word it in a way that people don't think you're saying it. Practice the next time someone says "I love pizza." Then say, "Pizza IS great but when you talk about pizza, you have to talk about the best part about pizza and that's the tremendous upside it has over other comparable food."