Mason Returns

It's been quite awhile since I have given you guys an awesome story about my awesome nephew Mason, so here is a story that my sister told me about recently.

This story started out at my sister's church where she was picking up Mason's little brother, Doc, from daycare.  In what must have been a lapse of stupidity, my sister went inside the church to get Doc and left Mason alone in the car and when she came back, sure enough, Mason was missing.  Well, she heads back inside to see where Mason could have gone and was walking down a hallway that is adjacent with a small courtyard when she found Mason.  Unfortunately, just as she was about to head inside the courtyard, Mason suddenly pulled down his pants and started to take a leak in a bush.  Now there is nothing strange about Mason taking a leak in public, however, this particular bush was right beside the window to a church conference room that was currently holding a meeting and to my sister's horror, everyone in that meeting just so happened to notice Mason, too.  After finishing, Mason waved at everybody in the conference room, ran back inside, and announced he was ready to go.  Luckily for my sister, pretty much everybody in that conference room knew who Mason was and laughed it off.  As for my sister, you would think that she would have learned her lesson by now to not leave Mason alone or bad/funny things will most definitely happen.  And by the way, Mason turned 6 this week and do you know what he asked for for his birthday?  A machine gun.  He has Batman villain written all over him.

"Here is Mason and his brothers at Halloween, they dressed up as the Duck Dynasty guys."

Don't Update Things That Don't Change

One of my pet peeves is when you get an update from any medium about something that has not actually updated.

Example:  ESPN breaking news update:  "Nick Saban is continuing to coach Alabama."

No shit, that is just the status quo.  He gets paid as much as pros and is treated like a king AND just won a championship.  I bet Notre Dame has a football team next year, too.  Let's start the breaking news sounder when there is actually new news.  Maybe we can create a stopwatch sounder for non-news that is not breaking.

I got on this rant after seeing yet another article form Yahoo! about the richest zip codes in America.  That reminded me of an article from a few weeks ago about the richest cities in America.  That reminded me of  an older article about the richest counties in America.  That reminded me of an even older article about the richest neighborhoods in America.  Affluent places or home values do not change very fast.  This is a good article every three years and then only if something changed drastically.  No one is in awe over the fact that the top 5 richest cities are in California or that the top two zip codes swapped spots because Mark Zuckerberg decided to expand his mansion across city lines.

"SEC - good at football.  Bad at life."

Weekly Picks of the Week - Recap

Well, the official end of the college football season came to a close on Monday night when Alabama slapped Notre Dame around like they were a drunken Irishman beating his wife.  And with the season over, I wanted to get a couple final notes off my chest before next fall:

-I would say that my picks were pretty good considering I finished the regular season with an overall winning record of 49-38.  However, when it came to picking bowl games, I was fucking terrible and went 3-10-1.  The good news is that I had my first push of the season.  Also, before the bowl games even started I told you guys that picking those glorified exhibition games is hopeless and then proved that hypothesis correct.

-Congratulations to Alabama for winning their third championship in four years, but this officially means that every fan other than Alabama fans (and fans of crappy SEC teams) now hates them.  They have now become the Yankees of college football.  Some Bama fans will love it because that means they are winners and people are just jealous of their success, but in reality, people will dislike them because success will go to their heads and they will probably become arrogant dicks, you know, like every fan of an SEC already is.

-Speaking of the National Championship, can someone please tell me why ESPN thought showing the overall record between Alabama and Notre Dame was relevant to last Monday's game?  It's great and all that Notre Dame is 5-1 all-time against Alabama, but they haven't played each other since 1987.  That means that none of the players on either team had even been born when that game was played.  So, how does Notre Dame beating Alabama over two decades ago seem pertinent to their recent matchup?  It doesn't.

-Lastly, I have one prediction for next season.  College GameDay will be in Clemson the first weekend of next season for the Top 10 matchup between Georgia and Clemson which will result in some great signs for me to pick from for my next Funniest GameDay Sign selection.  See ya next season, college football fans.

Regular Season Results: 49-38
Bowl Results: 3-10-1

"This is Alabama's QB's girlfriend.  I think I chose the wrong profession."

Rookie Performance v. Rookie Salary Cap

This football season we are seeing a lot of rookie quarterbacks succeeding in the NFL and a couple of them have even put their teams in the playoffs.  You can say the same thing about last season's rookie class when Cam Newton put up one of the, if not the, greatest seasons for a rookie QB in NFL history.  Before the past two seasons, rookies put up some decent numbers but nothing like we are seeing recently.  But why?  You could say that it is because the players coming into today's league are more mature and ready to succeed right away.  You could say that this is just a fluke and next year's class will fall flat on their ass when they enter the league.  But I think I have a simpler explanation.

Two years ago, the NFL implemented a new rookie wage scale that greatly reduced the amount of money a high draft pick could earn with their first contract and that is the reason we are seeing the new rookies' performances rise.  But why exactly?  Well, because immature 20 year olds are no longer being paid obscene amounts of money and can now focus on football and not swimming in their money vaults like Scrooge McDuck.  Sure, these guys are still making a ton of money, but it is far less than what they would have made before the new rookie wage cap.  For example, the year before they put the rookie wage scale in place (2010), the number one pick overall, Sam Bradford, got a 6-year/$78 million contract that guaranteed he would get $50 million even if he was cut or injured on the first play of his career.  That is an obscene amount of money and was more money than every QB in the league was making at the time except for Peyton Manning.  Then in 2011, Cam Newton was drafted first overall and because of the new rookie wage scale, his contract was only worth $22 million over four years.  In other words, his first contract was less than half of the previous year's first pick's guaranteed cash.  And yes, Cam is still making a lot of money, but is a third less than what he could have made if he was drafted one year earlier.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that there is a direct correlation between the new rookie wage scale and recent rookie QB performance.  Before Cam Newton and Andrew Luck were picked first overall, the first pick in the four previous drafts were Sam Bradford (had one half decent year), Matthew Stafford (only good when he is healthy which seems rare), Jake Long (he's been good but playing offensive line isn't as tough as QB), and JaMarcus Russell (biggest flop of all-time).  And sure, a couple of the high draft picks have been good over the years, but the rookie contracts had ballooned out of control only very recently and personally, I think it was about time they put a clamp on the ridiculous amount of money they were dishing out to unproven rookies.  Think about what I said earlier, Sam Bradford got a larger contract than all but one of the current starting quarterbacks in the league and he had yet to play a single down in the NFL.  How does that possibly make sense?  Those incoming rookies were making more than veterans who had proven that they can make it in the league and it took this long to finally fix that oversight?  Sure, the NFL makes billions in profit each year, but you would think that it would make more business sense in investing that money in your current players instead of guys you drafted in hopes that they were good enough to even cut it in your violent league.  I got way off topic there, but I think you see what I'm trying to say and if not, well, tough titties.

"Also, getting less money means it's okay to grow wicked neck beards."

NOKW - The Truman Show

Here comes the next chapter in our "I'm Okay With, I'm Not Okay With" series (if you don't know what this is, click here for all of the past posts):

Movie:  The Truman Show

Basic Plot:  A dude unknowingly has his ENTIRE life filmed 24/7 and it is broadcast as reality television, but he eventually figures it out and escapes.

I'm Okay With:  The fact that people thought watching a normal guy doing everyday stuff was good TV.  The fact that holding a person against his will and filming him without consent didn't get the creators of The Truman Show instantly arrested.  The fact that it took Truman 30 years to figure out that something was really strange about his life and that everyone around him was acting.  The fact that the creators of the show were able to keep Truman in his town for so long without him becoming suspicious.  The fact that more people didn't try and put a stop to this insane experiment of a TV show.  The fact that the creator of the show actually tried to kill Truman on live TV and probably will not be arrested for his attempted murder.  The fact that his life will be way worse off by leaving his fake life because he will be the most recognizable person on the planet and will never get a moment's peace like he would have if he stayed on the show.

I'm Not Okay With:  The fact that there is no way that the creators of the show will ever be able to recoup the cost of Truman's fake town.  The creators of the show literally built an entire town called Seahaven and put it in a massive dome that can be seen from space.  The town and dome alone had to have cost billions and on top of that, they have the technology to control the weather which can't be cheap.  And sure, the show is on the air for 30 years, so maybe they would be able to get back their investment through advertisements, but think about the other costs that go into the show.  Each person in that entire town is an actor and therefore that is an entire town's worth of people who they have to pay a yearly salary.  Then there are the maintenance costs for each building and what about the security of making sure people did not try and sneak into a structure that is so large that you can see it from the International Space Station.  Add all that up and I have no idea how this show even got past the budgeting stage of pre-production.  I am not okay with that.

"That's just his street and that alone would cost a lot, but they built a town in a bubble that can be seen from fucking outer-space and that would cost billions."

Stupid State Laws - Minnesota

Here comes another post about a state law that still exists on the books and why it is ridiculous (to see them all, click here):

Minnesota

"Citizens may not enter Wisconsin with a chicken on their head."
and
"A person may not cross state lines with a duck atop his head."

I had to include both of those laws because they are so similar and because they are both equally ridiculous.  I guess the first question is - why would anyone want or need to walk around with a duck or chicken on their head?  Was that an old-timey fashion statement that thankfully didn't catch on?  Seriously, what in the hell would possess someone to think "Hey, you know what would work better than a hat?  A duck!"?  On top of that, how do you even get the chicken or duck to stay up there?  It's not like it's the flattest of surfaces and you will be walking around so it will be next to impossible for it to sit still without ripping out half of your hair.  In fact, I think the state of Minnesota was on to something.  They said to themselves "This stupidity of people with ducks on their heads has to stop, let's make a law that you can't do it anymore in our great state".  I applaud you, Minnesota.

"Now go forth in the world, new graduate of Duck on your Head University.  And remember to always wear this duck on your head.....except in Minnesota, they are our sworn enemies and will throw you in jail just for our beliefs."

NFL Awesome Picks Spectacular - Playoffs Week 1

Because we here at Brainfarts love us some football, we decided that we would not only be doing college football picks each week, but we would also be doing some NFL picks, too. So, here is where I make my NAPS (NFL Awesome Picks Spectacular):

Picks are in red

All lines are provided by Sportsbook.ag

Cincinnati Bengals (+4.5) at Houston Texans (UNDER 43)

Saturday 4:30

- The Bengals defense has been on fire in the second half of the year.  They are the number one pass defense in the NFL over that span.  The Texans are struggling coming into the playoffs and their bread and butter, Foster, seems to be off.  This game should be a defensive battle that I think the Bengals can win outright but we will take the 4.5.

Minnesota Vikings at Green Bay Packers (-8) (OVER 46)

Saturday 8:00

- The Pack get Cobb back to boost the offense and even in the bitter cold, Rodgers should lead the offense to victory.  The Vikings have played well but there just isn't enough behind Peterson.  Of all the playoff QBs I would worry about in the playoffs, Ponder is number one.

Indianapolis Colts at Baltimore Ravens (-7) (OVER 47)

Sunday 1:00

- The Ravens are flying under the radar for the playoffs but they have a great RB and a solid team around him.  That is usually the recipe for playoff success especially against a rookie quarterback that struggles away from home.  Luck will try to back-door cover but Ray Rice will salt the game away with a late TD.

Seattle Seahawks (-3) at Washington Redskins (UNDER 46)
Sunday 4:30

- RG3 has been great this year, but he is still a little limited by his leg injury and has not beaten a lot of great defenses.  The Hawks are one of the most solid teams on both sides of the ball.  Their defense is getting back their top corner back and has been smothering against the run.  On offense, Wilson has been better than RG3 the last month and has done it through the air while leaning on Lynch for the ground game.  It has been a nice story for the Redskins this year but I see a double digit victory for Seattle in this one.

Last Week's Results: 3-3

Season Results: 36-42-2