Skins & Saints Recap...

Well, well, well....

Looks like we got ourselves a win this weekend! That was an awesome game...or should I say an awesome fourth quarter.

I admit it...I was about to chuck something at my TV after the first three. Our D was keeping us in it, but our offense looked dreadful. CP was breaking off some nice runs, but I just started getting that dreadful feeling that we were going to come up short yet again. The doom and gloom was setting in.

Then, it happened. The play. The play that, when we make the playoffs this year, we'll look back to as the point when Campbell became an NFL quarterback.

Campbell steps under center, scans the D, and calls an audible. He's got Santana Moss in one on one with their third or fourth string corner. The ball is snapped, Moss runs a kind of skinny post, Campbell launches a tight spiral, and that ladies and gentlemen, is your ball game. I could FEEL the electricity from the stadium in my living room From that point on, I knew that the game was over. When I talked to my Dad after the game, he asked if I had started breathing yet. I guess he was a little more nervous than I was about the Saints marching down the field, but after a huge play like that, the W was ours.

Next week....Cardinal hunting!

Are you ready for a long year?

That's what I found myself asking after watching my beloved Skins lose the season opener to the Super Bowl Champs. I was jacked up, as usual, for the season to kick off. Not a big fan of baseball, and the Olympic mojo had started to run out. Now my boys in burgundy and gold were ready to put an end to the dog days of summer, and jump start the fall.

There was plenty of reason to be excited. We've got one of the best all-around backs in the league in Clinton Portis. Everybody gets down on him because he hasn't been the same explosive, take it to the house dude that he was in his first two seasons in Denver. I admit, that when he struggled early on, I just saw another guy from the U who only cared about lining his pockets with Dan Snyder's loot. What I've seen is a guy who brings personality to the team, who enjoys killing somebody on a blitz pick up as much as scoring a TD, and who is invaluable to our team. He loves his job, and he plays hard. He also talks a lot of smack, but he doesn't take plays off either.


So anyway, let's evaluate what happened in our 16-7 loss. Here are the problems that I see that make me think that it's going to be a long, frustrating, nail-biting year:

1. Jason Campbell - Now you've got to feel for the guy. He's had to learn a new offense every year since high school. He's got the arm that makes coaches salivate, but I'm a little worried that he might not have the field vision to get it done. I really hope I'm wrong, because I love the kid, but he looked dreadful in the game. Every drop back, he pats the ball, second guesses himself, and gets into trouble. Not good. Having seen this offense work in Seattle, where his newest offensive guru came from, you can't be afraid. Matt Hasselbeck is a gunslinger, but that's why their offense has been one of the best. He makes mistakes, sure, and it was rough when he first took over, but the one thing that I think has led to him being a Pro Bowl QB is that he has never been afraid to make a mistake. I think JC is, and that may be his down fall. Hopefully Zorn can get in his head and get him on his game.


2. Jim Zorn - First time head coach. Also calls the plays. Also is the QB coach for JC. I think he's got too many responsibilities that are devastatingly important to our team having a fighting chance this year. The way that he left all those timeouts on the board going into the first half is inexcusable. The fact that there was apparently no two minute offense installed is laughable, if not only for the reason that we had a longer training camp and more preseason games than almost anybody else in the league. Everybody knocked Joe Gibbs and Co. for botching timeouts and challenges, but I have a dreadful feeling that Zorn is going to equal or surpass what they did last year.


3. Carlos Rogers - Never been a fan, never will be. He must be one of those awesome "practice players", because I just don't get it with him. It seems like he gets burned all the time, he's wildly inconsistent, and can't pull in an INT to save his life. You know how when a quarterback throws an interception, it just sucks the life out of the team Every time Carlos drops an interception that hits him right in the numbers, or right in the hands, or right in the face, I want to chuck a brick at my TV.


4. Bill Cowher - If you know Dan Snyder, then this will make perfect sense to you. If not, let me 'splain it to you, Lucy. Snyder loves to make a splash, loves the sexy free agent signing, or the sexy hiring. Jim Zorn ain't sexy, he's just all we could get. Bill Cowher is Jolie, Simpson, Alba, Klum, and Fox rolled into one. Jim Zorn pretty much has to go far in the playoffs to stop Snyder from throwing an obscene amount of money at the current CBS analyst. If Cowher wants to coach again, I can't see how Snyder wouldn't get him.


So there it is in a nutshell. I'm still a die hard, and I'll still root for us to finish out 15-1, but if for some ungodly reason that doesn't happen, then at least we can look forward to another Bill C coming to DC.

Blogging is harder than it looks...

So much for the big ol' blogging experiment, right?

I'm fully recharged and recommitted, and ready to blog about stuff.

Stay tuned, because I'm about to open the faucet and let the bloggity goodness pour out.....

The Fruits of My Labor...

Well people, here it is:

My very first tomato! I decided that this year I would try my hand at gardening, so I planted six tomato plants and two zucchini plants. My stepdad has a HUGE garden, so after a little advice, and a few "secrets", I was off and running.

When you start a garden for the first time, you have to dig up and till the soil. No big deal, right? A little sweat on the brow, but that's good for you. Anyway, I bought a hand tiller at the Depot, and prepared to dig in. This is where the problems started.

I decided that the garden should be by the back corner of the house, because that area gets a good amount of sunlight, with no real obstructions. What I didn't know, however, is that when the houses were built around here, they poured about a million rocks around the perimeter, about four feet out from the foundation. There was a layer of sod, and then more rocks than I've ever seen in my life! No dirt, just rocks, rocks, and more dang rocks!

So, what we ended up having to do was fill up several wheelbarrows full of rocks and then dump a ton of topsoil in to mix with what little actual dirt there was in the yard. After preparing and planting, I've got to tell you that I wasn't very confident. There were still tons of rocks in the soil, and alot of the time, gardens take a couple of years to really produce.

My wife and I diligently watered our little guys everyday, weeded the garden, and fought off all of the beetles and other SOB's who wanted a piece of the action. And it worked! I feel good, and it may sound pretentious, but it feels good to actually grow some of your own food. It's like it connects you back to the earth, back to the times when you had to work to get your food. It kind of fills you with a little bit of pride.

And I bet it's going to taste GREAT with a little bacon and lettuce!

The Dark Knight

I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive about seeing The Dark Knight. Try as I might, I couldn't avoid the reviews pouring in from people that said it didn't live up to the hype. So, trying to keep an open mind, I went with my wife, brother and wife's best friend to check it out.


After we prepared my wife's purse for the movies (that is we roasted up some hotdogs in the toaster oven, wrapped them in foil and stowed them away, along with some candy), we ventured out to our trifling local movie theater. My wife and I moved about a year ago, and we were definitley spoiled with the 24 theater mega-plexes. This theater has 9 screens and was last updated in any way, shape, or form about 15 years ago. Beggars can't be choosers, so since we didn't feel like driving half an hour to see a movie, off to the ol' moving picture house we went. We were all excited to see the movie, and once we stopped in at the concession catastrophe to get some popcorn and sodas, we were ready to get down.


I guess the easiest way I could sum up the movie is...WOW!


Now granted, I'm a geek for superhero type movies (I even was stoked for Superman Returns), but this movie was awesome for what it was: a blockbuster summer popcorn movie. It wasn't "The Greatest Movie of All-Time" like I've seen some people say. It also wasn't a "letdown" or "overhyped" either. It was basically awesome.



I don't want to spoil for anyone who still hasn't seen this movie (although, I can't believe that there is anybody left), so I won't get into plot points or specifics. The only thing you need to know is that Heath Ledger's Joker is probably one of the funniest, creepiest, and all-around best performances that I've seen, possibly ever. The kid created a character that just stays with you. It's THAT good.


Besides feeling bad about Ledger's death, I REALLY feel bad for the rest of the people associated with the Batman franchise. Christian Bale was good (although the way he talks as Batman made my wife laugh out loud a couple of times), and Aaron Eckhart did a great job as Harvey Dent. Gary Oldman was solid as Lt. Gordon, and Michael Caine was his usual English self as Alfred. But the Joker was so good that I didn't care one bit about anybody else...I couldn't wait until he came back on screen! This movie would've rocked you just took the Joker out of the story and replaced him with a random supervillain. Then maybe you would appreciate all of the awesome FX stuff, and the fight scenes and Gotham City goodness. For me at least, I was just so riveted by the Joker, that everything else was just filler. Really, really good filler, but filler nonetheless.


When we left the theater I felt bad that we wouldn't get to see the Joker's story continue (to me, it felt like there would've been more to follow if not for the tragedy), and I wondered to myself "What can they possibly do for the next one?"

I guess we'll have to see if it's possible to reinvent a reinvention of a franchise....

Welcome!

Well, hello there. Thanks for stopping by. What's that you say? Who the hell is this? What's all this about? Let me explain.

My name is John, aka OlNumba7, aka PD, aka JM....well you get the point. I've been inspired by other blogs that I read to start one of my own. The main reason is just to make witty comments on pop culture and other such stuff, and to keep the creative juices flowing. Hopefully, I'll entertain a couple of people along the way, but if not, oh well. It could be worse, right?

Anyway, if you're reading this, thank you, and I appreciate any feedback or comments you leave. If you just want to lurk, that's cool too...take it from a pro. And if nobody is reading this, well then I hope that I entertain myself...otherwise, Houston, we've got a problem!