This Week In Football: February 17-February 23

I know this is the wrong type of football, and it also happened three weeks ago, but please take this time to laugh at the Seahawks. Oh man, that was funny. You have Marshawn Lynch RIGHT THERE, and you throw crossing routes on the one? HAHAHAHAHA! That was the stupidest call in the history of any sport, ever. The Answering Machine approves. Anyway, that being said, let’s discuss the correct sport now.

 1.) The 2022 World Cup will be played in winter.

Everything about the 2022 World Cup is wrong. Everything. The whole fucking tournament is going to be built on the backs of slaves. Not like, wage slaves, but actual and literal slaves. 6,000 people are expected to die. For comparison’s sake, six people were killed setting up the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. And the only reason they even got this World Cup in the first place was because the Qatari government blatantly bribed Michel Platini et al. FIFA of course covered all of this up, because FIFA is a volcanic base away from being infiltrated by James Bond.

As if the mass death or overt corruption weren’t reason enough to pull the World Cup away from Qatar and put it somewhere else (Like: Australia, Canada, UK, USA, Mexico, Argentina, Italy, India, China, Indonesia, the Moon. All of these are better options), Qatar has summer temperatures of 50^oC (122^oF for those of us in good ol’ America). Imagine 22 Germans running around in that temperature. They’d all die of heat stroke. BUT. Since half of FIFA was paid off, they cannot and will not move the games. Instead, they have elected to move when the games will be played. So get excited for a World Cup in December, everybody!

This is stupid for a multitude of reasons, the main one being that every major European league is playing at that point. The vast majority of players at the World Cup play in Europe, and FIFA requires clubs to release their players for official games. This rule is ordinarily a good one, but for the 2022 World Cup, it means that one of two things are going to happen: Either, every league would have to completely rearrange their schedules, or clubs are going to have to play without many of their key players. Both of these options suck. This whole World Cup sucks. I already hate it. I’m still going to watch every game though.

And to be clear, I am absolutely not opposed to a World Cup being in the Middle East. I’m against it being in Qatar. Qatar has a population of 2.2 million people, which is the same as Phoenix. There’s only one major city in the whole country (Doha). They do not have the infrastructure, plain and simple, and their method of artificially creating said infrastructure is entirely reliant on slave labor. Everything about this is fucked.

2.) Chelsea gets screwed…

It is no secret that my hatred of Chelsea FC knows no bounds. They represent the death of modern football, and I generally enjoy seeing them suffer. But their 1-1 draw with Burnley was utter horseshit. As Jose Mourinho pointed out, there were no less than four different moments in the game when Chelsea was on the wrong end of a blown call. You can see them here, here, here, and here. Overall, this game won’t have much of an effect on Chelsea’s title hopes this season—they’ve got it in the bag—but one has to wonder how this can happen. Referee Mark Atkinson is notoriously shit at his job, but still. If this happened the other way around (i.e., Chelsea players kicked the shit out of Burnley all game and got away with it), half of England would be convinced he was paid off. It was the worst refereeing job since that time Mike Riley decided that José Reyes should be murdered by all of Manchester United. Fun fact: Mike Riley is now the head of all refereeing in England!

3.) …you can still hate Chelsea though.

Unless you live in a cave in Cambodia somewhere, you’ve by now seen the video of Chelsea fans in Paris shoving a black man off the metro while singing about being racists. If you haven’t seen that video, Chelsea fans in Paris shoved a black man off the metro while singing about being racists. This is a sentence that I wrote in 2015. Chelsea has, to their credit, done everything correctly. They already banned the fans in question and invited the victim on an all-expenses-paid trip to London to take in a game. Shit, I hate Chelsea and I’d still go to one of their games for free. I’m not a victim of racism though. It’s completely understandable if the man doesn’t take them up on the offer.

4.) Dortmund is back! Yay?

After being at the bottom of the Bundesliga table at the midseason point, Dortmund has had an incredible resurgence of late. Now they’re 12^th! ISN’T THAT GREAT?! All they had to do was beat the three shittiest teams in Germany!

But all kidding aside, Dortmund playing well again is good news for the Bundesliga. Despite the fact that Germany has easily the third best football league in the world—and arguably the second best—many people don’t take it seriously. Traditionally, Germany only has one consistent powerhouse team (Bayern, duh). Hamburg had a heyday back in the late 70’s, and Dortmund was great in the 90’s, but Bayern has been the only consistently world class team in the league. Because of this, it’s easy to overlook the overall quality of the Bundesliga. Dortmund can actually change this. With an annual revenue of about 200 million Euro, they have the money to be legitimate Champions League contenders year-in and year-out. In fact, just two years ago, they eliminated Real Madrid from the CL and gave Bayern a massive scare in the final. If Dortmund can get back into the CL, and the other top German teams (Schalke, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg, Mönchengladbach) can keep making consistent Round of 16 runs, the German league won’t be overlooked anymore.

P.S.: Shout out to the man in France who reblogs these things. You’re the real hero! (I’d have typed that in French, but my French is awful and would have sent you into convulsions)

This Week In Football (January 27-February 2)

Every Monday I will be providing a run-down of the previous week’s top stories from the wide world of soccer. This week will cover a series of brilliant transfers, Bayern getting dicked, and the Asian Cup Final.

1.) Schürrle to Wolfsburg, Salah to Fiorentina, Cuardado to Chelsea

It’s no secret that I hate Chelsea with the passion of a thousand burning hearts, but damn if this isn’t a good bit of business. It literally benefits everybody involved. I don’t think I’ve seen a series of signings this good and this mutually beneficial in…ever? Chelsea and Wolfsburg–two title-contending teams–get upgrades on their left wings, and Fiorentina (a club that usually aims for a high Europa League spot; think Spurs, but Italian) gets a young player with insane potential and no wages that they should be able to sell for a dickload of money four years from now. More on that in a moment.

Since I’m biased towards all things German, we’ll start with André Schürrle (Note: His middle name is “Horst” and yes, Germany has the ugliest sounding names on the planet). He’s a really, really good player with the potential to be great, but his carrier was beginning to stall at Chelsea. He would never be the preferred starter on the left wing because Eden Hazard exists, and wasn’t making the greatest impact off the bench. Although he was an above-average Super Sub, his performances never did enough to warrant regular starting time, which is what he needs most at this point in his career. Wolfsburg, having just lost Ivica Olić, will guarantee him a regular spot, and theoretically this will allow him to develop into the great player all of Germany knows he will be. At this point, Bayern will buy him for 40 mil. I CAN’T WAIT!

Colombian international Juan Cuardado, however, is already great. World class, even. After a World Cup in which he assisted a tournament-leading six (6) goals, the rest of the world got to see what Italians already knew: This guy is fucking good. AND CHELSEA ONLY PAID £23 MILLION! I can’t even bitch about them artificially inflating the market price of footballers’ contracts like I normally do whenever Chelsea does anything, because that’s a fucking steal. They sold Schürrle for £22 million. I don’t know who at Chelsea hammered out these agreements, but s/he deserves a raise. That’s insanely smart business.

Last but not least (TOTALLY least), we have Mohamed Salah. The 22-year-old Egyptian came to Chelsea last year after impressing at FC Basel, but he never really seemed to settle in England. He’s going to finish this season on loan to Fiorentina (who just lost Cuardado), and while the loan agreement does NOT have an option to buy, officials at Fiorentina have stated that they will purchase his contract anyway, should they like what they see in the next six months. I don’t really see a situation where they don’t sign Salah for good, to be completely honest. He’s clearly talented, but being the third choice winger at Chelsea meant he wasn’t getting the time he needed to develop. He’ll be at the top of the squad list at Fiorentina, and with Mario Gómez as the club’s striker, he just has to get the ball into the penalty box as often as he can to bumblefuck his way to 12 assists.

2.) Harry Kane becomes the first player to score 20 goals in England this season

This man literally came out of nowhere, and by “nowhere” I mean he was on Tottenham’s reserve squad until last year. Really, those are the same thing. But holy shit is he good now. According to my Spurs fan friend (apparently people do, in fact, support Tottenham, though I can’t figure why anyone would do that), it was generally accepted that Kane would be a decent squad player. He’d never be good enough to start regularly, but he’d be a solid back-up who can take the cup game or lower-quality teams. They thought he’d be a supporting player.

Wow, were they wrong.

Harry Kane has been a top five striker in the Premiere League this season. Diego Costa, Agüero, Wilfred Bony and normally Edin Džeko (though he’s had a shit season so far) are the only strikers I’d rate above Kane. That’s probably a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, as it is entirely possible that he’s a one-hit wonder, like that time Roque Santa Cruz scored 20 goals. But I think it’s safe to say that barring a catastrophic injury, Kane is going to be really good for a really long time.

It is also worth noting that my aforementioned Spurs fan friend has stated that his current feelings toward Kane are as follows: “Regardless of the biological impossibility, I want to have his babies.” So, there you have it.

3.) Wolfsburg 4 : 1 Bayern

Fuck you.

4.) Bojan injured, world sad

Is there anybody in the world who doesn’t like Bojan? Here’s a guy who broke all of Messi’s records at the Barcelona youth academy and then…nothing. He flamed out at Barcelona, was awful at Roma, and failed to impress at Ajax. Finally this year, Stoke City takes a chance on him, and after a bit of a slow start, he began to look really good. Whatever the issue with Bojan was, be it an inability to cope with pressure or what, he seemed to be working through it in the trash heap of a city that is Stoke. Then he injured his knee in a cup game against Rochdale earlier this week. The first reports seemed to indicate a torn ACL, which, fuck. That’s the worst thing you can do to your knee, and it would have sidelined the forward for a minimum of six months. That’s the best case scenario. Guys like Mikel Arteta and Holger Badstuber tore their ACL’s and missed over a year each. It didn’t look good for Bojan.

But today, we found out some good news! He doesn’t appear to have a complete tear, rather a sprain, and while that will keep him out for the remainder of the season, it means he’ll be back for the entire summer training camp and pre-season. We may still get to see the little Spanish Serb succeed!

5.) Australia wins Asian Cup, pisses off Asia

To get this out of the way: How is Timmy Cahill still so damn good? He’s 35 and plays in the shitpile of league that is the MLS. I refuse to believe he is human.

Anyway, the Asian Cup ended with Australia winning it all at home. Although it seems weird that Australia is playing in the Asian Cup, there’s actually a perfectly good reason for this. Australia’s original confederation, the OFC, is dogshit. The Aussies would win it annually, beating every other country by 32 goals (this is actually a thing that happened). However, because the confederation is so goddamn bad, it only has half of a World Cup qualifying spot, meaning the winner of the OFC has to face the 5^th placed South American team. It makes more sense for Australia to be in a confederation with at least five or so other countries at about their level of quality, than to blow out Tahiti and then have to beat Costa Rica twice to make a World Cup. However, not all of Asia is down with this.

The AFC has 4.5 World Cup qualifying spots, or four guaranteed spots, and a play-off. Before Australia, these went to Japan, South Korea, and Iran, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE fighting between themselves for the fourth spot. The play-off team has to face a country from one of the Americas and generally loses. With Australia taking up the 4^th spot, a lot of the Gulf Countries aren’t too happy with needing to beat Uruguay to qualify for a World Cup, and want Australia out. Personally, I don’t buy their argument, and I don’t think the AFC does either. Australia is certainly a good team, but they’re not great by any means. Once Tim Cahill retires (or more likely dies on the pitch at age 72), Australia’s quality will drop and then Iraq and the UAE will be able to make a realistic push for their spot. But for now, congratulations to the Soccerroos, this year’s Asian Cup Champions!

Click here to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com

Ballghazi, the Deflateriots, and America’s Love of Stupid Controversy

Time for the Weekend Freewrite! Every Saturday or Sunday–depending on how lazy I am–I’ll write a short essay about whatever I feel like. This week: Ballghazi Ballghazi Ballghazi Ballghazi Ballghazi.

For the eight of you that regularly read this blog, sorry for being away for the past two weeks. As much as I want to make a sarcastic excuse (GODDAMN IT, GREEN BAY), that’s not why I stopped writing for a bit. I’ve mentioned before that I’m bipolar, and I’ve been struggling with that recently. That being said, GODDAMN IT, GREEN BAY. There isn’t enough tequila in Mexico or vodka in Russia to erase that game.

Anyway, instead of the usual NFL recap—I didn’t watch the Pro Bowl because fuck that—I want to talk about one thing, and one thing only: Ballghazi.

For those of you who live in Saudi Arabia (a decent number of you!) and don’t know what I’m talking about, this is the term the media has given to the fact that the New England Patriots were caught deflating game balls to below regulation pressure, in order to make them easier to grip (giggity). Well, it’s the least stupid name. More politically correct outlets refer to the event as “Deflategate,” but I think adding “-gate” to the end of anything when describing a controversy is absolute fuckery. IT WAS CALLED THE WATERGATE SCANDAL BECAUSE IT TOOK PLACE IN THE WATERGATE HOTEL. There is literally no reason to call every controversy “Whatevergate.”

Ballghazi is also absolute fuckery. It’s currently taking up 23 hours of the 24-hour-news cycle, and it’s making everyone stupider. Keep in mind, this is America—a country so dumb that we literally made “stupider” a word because we were collectively too inept to figure out that the correct phrasing is “more stupid.” AND THIS FUCKING SHIT IS STILL MAKING US DUMBER. Literally everybody in the country has an opinion on this, up to and including my parents’ dog. Her opinion is “Woof,” followed by hurriedly pissing on a carpet. It ranks in the top ten smartest opinions. Because the fact is, every team does this to some extent. Even Aaron Rodgers has openly spoken about how he and the Packers will overinflate game balls, because that’s what they practice with, and it makes it harder for opposing defensive backs to intercept a bad pass. This is mostly a non-story about a minor rule violation that had a negligible effect on the game. Theoretically, all that should have happened is this: The NFL looks into the claims about underinflated balls (giggity), and fines the team whatever amount of dollars if it finds the claims accurate. The end, everyone moves on.

But NOPE. Instead, we get treated to a Bill Belichick press conference wherein he demonstrates a knowledge of 10^th grade chemistry rivaled only by your average 8^th grader. Then Bill Nye and the Wilson athletic company have to interject to point out that everything Belichick says is fundamentally wrong. At this point, everyone has taken sides, and the “CHEATRIOTS CHEATED CHEAT CHEAT CHEAT” camp has started to pull horseshit statistics out of their asses to PROVE ONCE AND FOR ALL that the Patriots’ ball-tampering (giggity) drastically affects games. Did I mention these stats were bullshit? On the other hand, Boston sports fans are being even more entitled and annoying than normal. I didn’t even know this was possible. Any more and they’ll turn into Seattle fans.

Ballghazi is annoying and serves no legitimate purpose. So why do we have to hear SO GODDAMN MUCH about it? Well, for the same reason we have to hear about how Marshawn Lynch won’t talk to the media (NOTE: Lynch saying “I’m here so I don’t get fined” 27 times at a press conference will never stop being funny): Americans need controversy. For some reason, we aren’t happy with facts; we need opinions. Hell, if facts get in the way of our opinions, then DOWN WITH FACTS! Americans have a compulsive need to overreact to trivial bullshit, because it distracts us from ourselves. Not to mention, our culture relies on clear, distinguishable heroes and villains. USA: Heroes, Nazi Germany: Villains. Luke Skywalker: Hero, Emperor Palpatine: Villain. Clint Eastwood: Hero, Not Clint Eastwood: Villain. This Superbowl, however, doesn’t have a clear hero. Nobody likes the Patriots and nobody likes the Seahawks, so when it came out that Belichick may have cheated (again), it gave us something convenient to latch onto. It gave us the clear villain we so desperately crave. And it gave us a controversy. At the end of the day, Ballghazi is really what America is all about. ENJOY THE SUPERBOWL, EVERYBODY!

Click here to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com

Do As I Say, Not As I Do: A Fitness Guide From A Man Who Once Ate Panda Express Every Day For A Month

Time for the Weekend Freewrite! Every Saturday or Sunday–depending on how lazy I am–I’ll write a short essay about whatever I feel like. This week: How to lose weight and stay fit!

The other day, I was talking with a friend about how we spent our respective holiday seasons. It turns out, both of us lead incredibly boring and uneventful lives, but that’s beside the point. During this conversation about how dull we are, my friend mentioned to me that she had given up drinking beer in an attempt to lose the weight she had gained from beer. Since I consider my opinions to be facts, I immediately started giving her unsolicited health and fitness advice, and now, I’m passing that unsolicited advice on to you! Read on to learn how to get–and stay–fit while still being able to get drunk and eat shitty food!

Step 1: Buy a scale

Avoiding scales is easy. Scales tell you uncomfortable and awful truths about how you’re either a bucket of flab or a twig that nobody could ever find attractive, and that sucks. If you avoid a scale, you won’t have to face these facts. And not facing facts is great!

Except if you’re trying to lose weight and get fit, you need to buy a scale and use it every day. Personally, I keep mine in my bathroom and reflexively check it 9348572038741021 times daily. Sometimes I even weigh myself immediately before and after I shit. My record is two pounds! Now, you obviously don’t need to do that, but you do need to weigh yourself every day. Pick a time–I use 8:30 in the morning–and check the scale. It’ll be brutal at first, but as you steadily start to lose weight (or gain it, if you’re trying to build muscle), you’ll feel gradually better about yourself.

Step 2: Figure out your caloric output

Losing weight is, in its most simplified definition, consuming less calories than you use. The thing is, not many people really know how many calories they burn each day. Luckily, the Internet can help! I like to use the ExRx calculator–linked here–to determine how many calories I require on average. Another way to estimate how many calories your body burns each day to make you not die is to use the Karth-McArdle formula, which determines your resting metabolic rate (i.e., how many calories you need each day to live). The formula looks like this: 9.81 x (your weight x (1 – your body fat %))+370. So, to use an example of someone who is 150 pounds and 15% body fat, you would determine the resting metabolic rate like so: 9.81 x(150 x (1-.15))+370= 1621. That’s how many calories this person’s body would use if s/he only lay sedentary for the day. Now, you simply add an estimate of how many calories burned doing various activities (like walking) for the full number. Personally, I think it’s easier to just use the ExRx calculator. You’re already dieting; don’t make it worse by adding math.

Step 3: Adjust your diet

Dieting is shitty and awful, but it doesn’t have to be THAT shitty and awful. If you make some rules for yourself and adhere to them, you can lose weight without wanting to kill yourself and everyone around you. The easiest way to do this is the 75/25 rule, which means that 75% of your daily caloric intake has to be healthy and 25% can then be a treat. So, on a 2,000 calorie diet, you’d get 500 calories of pleasure foods or drinks. That’s two Starbucks frappuccinos and a king-sized Snickers bar. Still being able to eat junk food makes any diet better! Another thing you can do is to simply stop eating at night. After 8 PM, I don’t eat anything (unless I have to pull an allnighter for some reason). It helps! You should also eat more protein. It takes more energy for your body to digest protein than any other type of nutrient. Not to mention: GAINS, MOTHERFUCKER. Buy yourself a ton of fish and chicken and add them to your diet.

The Internet is full of tips and ideas to help you be fit. Here are some more that I’ve heard: When you want a snack, eat fruit; cut soda from your diet; drink your coffee black (I actually do this one, 10/10 would recommend); take Metamucil and shit yourself thin; stop drinking alcohol (Note: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA); and keep a public log of your weight loss (or gain) where other people can see it. SHAME THE POUNDS AWAY. But really, the important thing is to find a diet plan that works for you and stick with it. Simple adjustments can do wonders, and you don’t have to go full-on Atkins Diet and hate yourself.

Step 4: Don’t skimp on cardio

If you go to a gym right now, you’re going to see a bunch of overweight guys trying to get rid of their beer guts using nothing but bench presses and bicep curls. It will NEVER work. When you go to the gym, spend at least 45 minutes doing some form of cardio. Since I have a grand total of zero (0) functioning knees, I do low-impact stuff. ELLIPTICAL ALL DAY. Did you know that an hour on the elliptical can burn 750 calories? It can! And, since 25% of those calories can be junk food, that’s an extra 187 calories of Oreos that I can consume. Seriously, don’t skip cardio. It sucks and takes forever, but it’s important.

Step 5: Don’t lift weights like an idiot

Cardio is great for burning away excess body fat, but if you want to replace that fat with anything, you are going to have to lift. If you do lift, DON’T BE THAT GUY WHO JUST DOES BICEP CURLS AND BENCH PRESSES. That guy sucks and nobody loves him. The easiest way to not lift like a twat is to separate your body into four different muscle groups: Back and shoulders, chest and triceps, abs and core, and legs. Now, divide your gym time up between these groups. You should try to lift between three and five times a week. Less than three probably isn’t enough, and more than five is probably too much. I lift five times a week (three days on, one day off, two days on, one day off), and I split my workouts like this: Back and shoulders (2 days), chest and triceps (2 days), legs (1 day). At the end of each work-out, I do three sets of 10 bicep curls and spend about 20 minutes on abs and core. I find this plan to work for me, but it can vary from person to person. Check online for other plans, and find something that you enjoy. Just don’t skip leg day. Everyone can tell when you skip leg day. And remember, lifting weights won’t lead to weight loss, just muscle growth.

Getting in shape will always be kind of a pain in the ass, but it doesn’t have to be torture. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN still enjoy Cheez-its and beer while losing weight, as long as you don’t allow yourself to fall into a pattern of excess junk food consumption. If you make a plan and stick to it, you will see results, and when you see results, you’ll feel better about yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go buy Panda Express and stare angrily at my love handles in the mirror.

Click here to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com

This Week In Americaball (January 8-January 14)

Each Wednesday, I will be providing a run-down of the previous week’s top stories from around the NFL. This week will cover the Divisional round, Chris Johnson, and the MVP race.

1.) The Divisional Round was really good!

The difference in quality between the games in Wildcard Weekend and those in the Divisional Round was night and day. The wildcard games were an affront to both God and Man, whereas the second round of the playoffs gave us three great games and one that featured the Seahawks. Nothing good can happen when the Seahawks play.

The neat thing is, there isn’t really a lot to complain about this week. Last week, the most exciting game ended 30-17, whereas this week, that was the LEAST exciting game. As it should be! However, with that being said, there is lots to discuss. So let’s dive in!

Baltimore Ravens (31) at New England Patriots (35)

By the end of the first quarter, the Ravens were up 14-0. PLAYOFF JOE FLACCO had already thrown two touchdowns, and the Patriots weren’t getting dick done on the field. It looked like the Ravens were going to run away with this one, and then win the Superbowl. This would suck, because the Ravens front-office is run by sociopathic dipwads who tried and utterly failed to cover up the VIDEO EVIDENCE that one of their star players beat his fiancée unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator, and then found a way to do literally everything else wrong afterwards. I LIKE RAY RICE. Fuckholes. And you just know that if this team had won the Superbowl, Roger “Ginger-Haired Penis” Goodell would give a speech about how they overcame adversity on their way to victory, while painting Janay Rice as the cause of her beating and not the victim. And then God would have sucked the entire stadium right to Hell on the spot.

Luckily, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, the Patriots won. That made me feel dirty to type. But it’s true, the Machiavellian dictatorship that is New England and the ungrateful little shits that are all the fans are both infinitely more likeable than everything associated with the Baltimore Ravens. The Patriots came back from a 14-point deficit twice, held Baltimore to a field goal at a key moment late in the game, managed to take the lead, gave PLAYOFF JOE FLACCO enough time to march his team downfield to within scoring distance, and finally won the game when PLAYOFF JOE FLACCO remembered that he’s still Joe Flacco after all and threw a bafflingly stupid interception. HOORAY!

Carolina Panthers (17) at Seattle Seahawks (31)

I’m somewhat amazed that the score to this game was as close as this. Just like everyone else on the planet (up to and including Tajikistani orphans who don’t even know that American Football is a sport), I thought Seattle was going to win this game by a score of 45-7. But it was 14-10 at halftime! Carolina actually moved the ball fairly well and looked like they might be able to keep the game alive.

Of course, it was 31-10 by the middle of the fourth quarter. At this point I stopped watching because I realized that the Panthers are awful in that they suck, and the Seahawks are awful in that 9/11 truthering douchenozzle Pete Carroll is the head coach, and that I would be much more emotionally invested in eating cheese. But apparently, Carolina kept Seattle out of the endzone and the very end, and even managed to steal a touchdown back! So good job, Panthers! You don’t totally suck.

Dallas Cowboys (21) at Green Bay Packers (26)

Okay, I’ve got to get something out of the way before I talk about this game: SPLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that that’s taken care of, let’s talk about Dez Bryant’s catch-that-wasn’t-a-catch. It wasn’t a catch. Although Bryant had control of the ball as he was going to the ground, the NFL rules state that in order for it to be a catch, you have to maintain that control through to the ground. Bryant didn’t do that. It was a fairly straightforward application of the Calvin Johnson rule, and in this shittily officiated game, it was one of the few calls that the refs got right. With that being said, the NFL needs to reexamine this rule in the off-season, and I don’t think that’s going to be as easy as everyone wants it to be. The Calvin Johnson rule does have a purpose in existing; if it didn’t, defending receivers would literally be impossible.

But let’s go back to Dez Bryant. He was, from the moment he made contact with the ball, in the process of going to the ground. That makes every single “football move” argument irrelevant, per article 8.1.3 of the NFL rulebook, a book which is more complicated than Paradise Lost. I think the NFL would do well to add the “act common to the game” thing to the process of going to the ground. Because Bryant’s lunge for the endzone should have constituted a football move. Basically, don’t make the football move irrelevant for receivers going to the ground. That would clear up a lot of the confusion on plays like this one. Of course, since this is the NFL, they won’t do that and will instead see if they can’t fine Brandon Marshall the entire GDP of Panama for wearing green shoes.

Indianapolis Colts (24) at Denver Broncos (13)

Guys, we may have just watched Peyton Manning’s last game. This is it everyone. From now one, every player we cheer for will be younger than us. I’m 21 years old. I shouldn’t feel so…old. Also, can we all give CJ Anderson a hug? He did everything he could for Denver; he tried, when the entire team gave up. And then in the post-game press conference, he blamed himself for not doing even more. I feel bad for the guy. DON’T BE SAD, CJ, YOU WERE AWESOME!

2.) Chris Johnson cited for misdemeanor weapons violation

At first, I thought that Jets running back Chris Johnson’s misdemeanor was something of a non-story. I tend not to care too much when athletes do dumb shit, because, well, I’m the same age as they are and I’m a fucking idiot. If I got ten million dollars to play a sport, I’d probably be EVEN MORE of a fucking idiot. But then when I read the story, I realized something: This isn’t even Chris Johnson’s fault; our gun laws are just rockfuck stupid! Seriously, Israel has saner gun laws than we do, and they’re an active war zone.

The problem with American gun laws, other than everything, is their rampaging inconsistency. Some states have extensive processes of testing and certification you have to go through in order to even get a gun, whereas others let you take your AR-15 with you when you pick your kids up from day care. Chris Johnson was cited in Florida, because the state allows concealed carry without a permit, but you have to be certified for open carry. For some fucking reason. This actually makes me terrified to go to Florida. WHAT IF I GO TO MCDONALDS AND THE CASHIER SHOOTS MY FACE?! Terrifying. Anyway, Johnson was carrying his gun openly, and got cited for it. If he were in, like, a saner state, he’d have been completely fine. What I really don’t understand is why Florida considers concealed weapons to be less of a threat than openly-carried ones. Florida makes no sense. Can we just give it to Cuba as a show of good faith, make Puerto Rico a state, and move on as a happier country?

3.) Aaron Rodgers wins MVP award

I love the MVP award, because it’s entirely meaningless, but it still makes people on the Internet foam at the mouth. HOW COULD AARON RODGERS WIN AND NOT JJ WATT RAWR RAWR RAWR! It’s great, especially if you hate yourself!

Anyway to answer my all-caps and blatantly sarcastic question up there, Rodgers won because “MVP” stands for “Most Valuable Player.” Houston with Watt is a 9-7 team; Houston without Watt is a 7-9 team. Green Bay with Rodgers is a 12-4 team; Green Bay without Rodgers is an unmitigated disaster that hurts to watch. Watt and Rodgers were equally amazing this season, but Rodgers is more important to the success of his team. That being said, JJ Watt is an inhuman freak, and he’ll probably be MVP next year, especially if he drags Houston to the playoffs, which he very well might. Hopefully that year’s Wildcard Weekend won’t be unwatchable.

Click here to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com

This Week In Football (January 6-January 12)

Every Monday I will be providing a run-down of the previous week’s top stories from the wide world of soccer. This week will cover Junior Malanda, whatever the fuck is happening at Barcelona, and the Team of the Year.

1.) Junior Malanda dies, aged 20

Last week, I ended my soccer recap with the sad news that Swedish international Rasmus Elm may have to end his football career early due to complications from Celiac’s Disease. This week, I’m going to start with the sad story, with the hopes that I can make enough jokes afterwards to alleviate the grief.

Wolfsburg midfielder Junior Malanda was killed in a car accident on January 10^th of this year. He was 20 years old. Malanda was in the back seat, travelling on the Autobahn in Germany during a storm. The driver of the car lost control, went off the road, and collided with a tree. Malanda was thrown from the vehicle and died instantly.

This is a sobering reminder that athletes are human too. We expect our soccer players to play the game until they’re 35 and then retire and disappear. But this is not always the case. The players that we cheer and curse week in and week out are people, with futures and hopes and dreams, and Junior Malanda will never get to realize that. That’s awful. My thoughts are with his family, friends, and teammates, and I hope that everybody close to Junior is able to recover and move on, with him in their memories. It sucks to lose a friend. Keep Malanda and those close to him in your thoughts tonight.

Now for some lighter news.

2.) Lionel Messi is doing things or something!

The Internet rumor mill has been going INSANE with Leo Messi crap this week. Apparently everybody and their mother is convinced the Argentine international is on his way to Bullshit Chelsea F.C. BECAUSE HE FOLLOWS THE TEAM ON INSTAGRAM NOW.

Except that’s fucking stupid.

Chelsea cannot possibly hope to buy out Lionel Messi’s contract with Barcelona, regardless of whether or not the forward is interested in playing for the London club. The reason for this is a little thing called Financial Fair Play.

Financial Fair Play, or FFP, is a regulatory system imposed by UEFA (the organization that manages all European football) in order to limit the spending power of teams that have been arbitrarily bought by billionaires with near-unlimited funding–teams like Chelsea. Essentially, clubs cannot record more than a 45 million Euro loss over a three year period (though that number is greatly increased for Premier League teams, because Michel Platini is a dumbfuck), or else they will be penalized an exorbitant amount of money by UEFA.

This is important, because Leonel Messi’s contract would cost a minimum of €120 million to buy, although that number is probably a lot larger, because Barcelona would haggle the shit out of any transfer attempt. So let’s say €250 million (Barcelona’s president says €580 million, but that’s an absolutely ridiculous number with literally zero basis in reality). If we are assuming that price, there are exactly five teams that could conceivably buy Messi: Real Madrid, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, and Dortmund (although they would have to cook their books a bit). Dortmund can be outright eliminated, because they have so much other shit to worry about, which leaves Real, ManU, Bayern, and Arsenal. Chelsea cannot afford Messi without turning in a loss, unless they decided to sell four or five senior players. Which would be utterly fucking moronic. So it will not happen. Even if they tried to stagger the cost of signing him (which they would), FFP automatically amortizes the complete transfer cost to prevent this very loophole. And Chelsea would have to pay wages too! So it wouldn’t make a difference in the end.

Bayern won’t put in a bid for Messi. Although he would improve the team, he would not offer enough of an improvement–at a position that can be played by Mario Götze, Thomas Müller, Arjen Robben, Claudio Pizarro, Bastian Schweinsteiger, and David Alaba–to justify paying that kind of money.

Arsenal won’t put in a bid for Messi either. In order to buy out the midfielder’s contract, Arsenal would have to deplete every last cent of their £208 cash reserve. Now, they could do that, because cash reserves don’t count against your balance sheet, meaning FFP would not consider it a loss. But, emptying a cash reserve of that size is frankly fucking stupid. Arsenal is not that dumb. Consider them out.

This leaves Manchester United and Real Madrid. ManU won’t do it for the same reason as Bayern. Yes, Messi would be an improvement, but not enough of one to justify that kind of a price tag. They’d be better off buying a thousand new centerbacks, because they currently don’t have any. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: ManU’s defense is so bad that YOU could score on them.

Messi will never play for Real Madrid. Ever.

So there you have it. Barcelona might be a bit of a mess right now (seriously, nobody has any idea what the actual fuck is going on at Barça), but Leo Messi isn’t going anywhere. And as long as the best player in the world is leading the attack, the club will never be out of Champion’s League contention.

3.) Xherdan Shaqiri to Inter Milan

Xherdan Shaqiri is a fire hydrant that plays soccer and posts dumb shit on Twitter. The Swiss midfielder was signed by Bayern Munich from F.C. Basel back in 2012, and at first, Bayern fans (like me!) were pretty excited about what he could do. He was still a bit raw and lacked decision making, but he could compensate with sheer athleticism and talent. As a left winger, he was pretty much never going to start over Franck Ribéry, but he could have easily been Bayern’s future on the left side.

Unfortunately, Shaqiri never improved. He’s just as raw now as he was three years ago, and his decision-making has somehow gotten even worse. That, combined with his tendency to take jabs at Bayern’s front office and brag about any interest clubs like Liverpool showed in signing him, soured the player for a lot of Bayern fans. Personally, I still like the guy, and I hope he does well at Inter.

Speaking of Inter, holy shit they are rocking the winter transfer window. Xherdan Shaqiri might be an idiot and might be unpolished, but he’s insanely talented. He’s best at playing direct football. He can run, dribble, and shoot extremely well, so he THRIVES in simple systems that don’t involve any complex passing or formation shifts (which Bayern does). The talent and ability are there, even though the decision-making is not, so putting him in a system that doesn’t require intelligence will do wonders for both the player and club he plays for. Not to mention, his best games for Bayern Munich came with Shaqiri deployed in the CAM role. Inter could very well play him in the middle, put Lukas Podolski out on the left, and score 5 goals a game. They’d probably give up 4, but still, this team is making the right moves to drag itself out of the fucking gutter. The Washington Redskins should probably start taking notes.

4.) Wilfred Bony to Manchester City

Swansea City striker Wilfred Bony said earlier in the season that he wanted to move to a club with Champions League aspirations. Which, fine. The fact that Swansea are even in the Premier League is a minor miracle, and the club would be happy to not get relegated and ECSTATIC to finish 10^th. Wilfred Bony is, like, amazing, so it makes sense why he would want to move to a club with higher ambitions.

But why the shitting fuck did he move to MANCHESTER CITY? This team has at least two strikers who are better than him–Edin Džeko and Sergio Agüero–and arguably a third in Stevan Jovetić. A move to Chelsea would have made more sense, since he’d be immediately behind only Diego Costa on the squad list. Or he could have gone to Arsenal and instantly been the best striker on the team, since I don’t think Alexis Sanchez counts as “a striker on the team” so much as he’s just “the team.” WHY DIDN’T HE DO THAT? He literally went to the only club in the world he can’t improve. Christ, I’d take him at Bayern so that Robert Lewandowski wouldn’t have to play 148 games next season. ANYWHERE ELSE would have been a better move for the Ivorian.

But Manchester City is probably paying £250,000-per-week wages, so I guess there’s that.

5.) TEAM OF THE YEAR VOTES ARE IN OMG

Every year, UEFA.com allows its users to vote for the players–based in Europe–who they think should be in the Best XI. It’s like the Pro Bowl, but stupider. However, this year a miracle happened: THEY PICKED A GOOD TEAM. Look for yourselves!

Manuel Neuer (GK)

Philipp Lahm(RB)–Sergio Ramos(CB)–Diego Godín(CB)–David Alaba(LB)

Arjen Robben(RM)–Toni Kroos(CM)–Ángel Di María(LM)

Lionel Messi (RW)–Zlatan Ibrahimović(S)–Cristiano Ronaldo(LW)

That’s actually not bad. This fan voted team is better than most “Teams of the Year” picked by so-called experts. I have a few minor gripes with it, of course. I’d swap Ramos for Jérôme Boateng (though a case could be made either way), drop Zlatan since he plays in France and the French league kind of blows, move Robben to the striker spot, and add Luka Modrić in the defensive midfield. But even then, this is really good. Normally these things are just “Barcelona plus Ronaldo and Casillas,” so GOOD JOB INTERNET! You finally managed to not fuck everything up.

Click here to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com

From Paris To Pakistan: The Victims Of Radical Islam

Time for the Weekend Freewrite! Every Saturday or Sunday–depending on how lazy I am–I’ll write a short essay about whatever I feel like. This week: Radical Islam…should be fun.

After Wednesday’s attack on the Paris headquarters of humor magazine Charlie Hebdo, I sent a text to a close friend of mine: a Lebanese Muslim living in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, where she works as an architect. It was a simple message, an apology that she and others like her had to be associated with the violent, lunatic fringe assholes who commit atrocities in the name of Allah.

She was livid.

“These people do not represent Islam,” she told me. “They are making up their own laws that go against every part of our Islamic teachings. And they create a system of ‘You are with us or you are against us,’ and those who are against are beaten or murdered. What offends me most is how they’re dealing with the women they’re capturing. It’s like they’re dividing a flock of sheep amongst themselves.” These messages went on, condemnation and seething anger dripping from every word.

But never once did she show fear.

And that’s what these terrorists want: They want us to be afraid. Not afraid of terrorists, though. Afraid of Muslims. They want the Western world to fear Islam and to be distrustful of all its followers, because that is how they grow and maintain their power. They commit horrible, violent acts that cause fearful Westerners to alienate and disenfranchise the entirety of the Islamic population, and then they recruit from these alienated and disenfranchised citizens. We cannot let this happen.

While outlining this article, I made a list of topics I wanted to talk about when writing. I wanted to talk about how the NAACP offices were bombed on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo shootings, and how the news media completely ignored this. I wanted to talk about how Anders Breivik (who killed 77 people in Oslo the name of Christianity) and Wade Page (who killed six in a Sikh temple in my home town because he thought they were Muslims) were never once considered terrorists. I wanted to talk about how whenever an abortion clinic is bombed, we don’t make Christian religious leaders appear on CNN to condemn the actions. I wanted to go into detail about our hypocrisy when it comes to what we consider terrorism.

But that isn’t fair to the victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo.

So instead of focusing on hypocrisy, why don’t we focus on change? Let’s all take a moment to think about who the victims of terrorism really are. Because they are France and Australia and Canada and England and Spain and Israel and the United States. But they are also Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Syria and Nigeria and Egypt and Lebanon and Palestine. We can’t forget this; we can’t forget that all of us, Western and Eastern, are affected by these atrocities. That’s what the terrorists want. They want us to forget.

I think there’s a way to fight terrorism, and I don’t think it’s carpet-bombing Yemen with hellfire robots from the sky. I think it’s reaching out to all of those who are affected by radical Islamic terrorists, and showing support. I think it’s communication and developing deep levels of understanding between groups. I think it’s learning to accept–not just tolerate, but accept–one another for our differences. And I think it’s realizing that these differences are what make us so beautiful. If we can do that, terrorism cannot win.

After Wednesday’s attack on the Paris headquarters of humor magazine Charlie Hebdo, I messaged a close friend: a Parisian. It was a simple message, an apology for the horrible events that happened in his country, and a reassurance that the world stood behind France that day.

He was hopeful.

“It is a huge shock for France,” he told me. “But there is a silver lining: French citizens have never felt more unified than today.”

So let’s be like France. Everybody, regardless of who you are, where you are from, or what you believe, let us all be like France. Let us see the silver lining in the wake of this horrible tragedy, and allow ourselves to come closer together. This is the chance for all of us–blacks and whites, Christians and Muslims, and everybody else–to join together and say, in unison, “Nous sommes Charlie.”

Click here to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com

“What Shoes Should I Wear?!” –Checking The Answering Machine

Every Friday, I will rip off Drew Magary’s “Funbag” and answer questions sent to the Answering Machine’s email. This week will cover shoes, Korrasami, and Team Edward!

Lu:

Should I wear red pumps or faux leather nude mules with my new Burberry trench this season? I’m not sure if it’s better to go bold or keep it classy.

 Christ, this question is stupid. But it’s the first one I received, so I guess I’m obligated to answer it. Anyway, since I wasn’t sure what “mule nudes” are, I had to google it, and the Google Image results were about 1/3 shoes, 1/3 porn, and 1/3 actual pictures of mule penises (penii?). Fucking Google, man. But if you’re trying to match shoes to a trench, those are the shoes you should go with. I feel like wearing red pumps with a trench is just a cry for help.

As an aside, I had a bottle of Burberry cologne for the past year that I absolutely loved. It took me about a month to realize it didn’t say “Blueberry” on the bottle.

Michael:

Why do the Packers suck, and why is Benji by Sun Kil Moon the album of the year? Fuck you and the goddamn Packers.

HEY FUCK YOU MORE ASSHOLE. Also, I’m going to have to disagree with you on that album choice. Benji is great, but the best album of 2014 was definitely Run The Jewels 2. Killer Mike and El-P are both better lyricists and musicians than almost everyone else in the industry, and it shows. In second place I’d put Acid Rap (EDIT: This came out in 2013. I’m dumb), because Chance is the shit. Benji comes in third. STILL PRETTY GOOD. In addition, your question inspired me to kill some time by looking up year-end album lists online. Pitchfork made a point to be stupid like always, and Rolling Stone went full-on Dadrock. I shit you not, they picked fucking Songs of Innocence. Not only did that album BLOW, but it was also a glorified computer virus! That’s the closest I’ve ever come to feeling bad for people who bought Apple products.

Sankala Audu:

Dear friend,
I hope that you will not expose or betray this trust that I am about to impose on you. I decided to contact you to help me actualise this business for the mutual benefit of both of us. My name is Sankala Audu the Auditing and Accounting section manager in Bank of Africa Burkina Faso, there is one of our customers who have made fixed deposit of sum of ($11.8)million for 7 years and upon maturity; I sent the notification to his address, but no response. After few months, we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his business partner that he died after a brief illness in his country. We tried everything humanly possible to locate his relatives or family, but all efforts failed. The deposit is still intact with my bank and the interest is being paid into the principal sum at the end of each year.
If the fund remains in the account for more months, the fund will be confiscated and transferred into the treasury of the Government as unclaimed funds. This is why I contact you for joining hands with the honesty and truth to ensure that the fund is transferred into your bank account, a bank account anywhere in the world can help the transfer. All that is required of you is to contact my bank with the information I will send you as the next of kin or a business associate of the depositor with this system the fund will be paid into a bank account you will provide to the bank. To be honest with you, this is totally legal and 100% risk free.
But the secret must remain between you and me, I have worked with this bank for many years and I know all the secrets and I have carefully mapped out my perfect strategies to handle this operation successfully. The depositor is my close friend before his death that is the main reason why I’m the only one working at the bank here that knows much about the existence of this fund and the secrets and the depositor. We will also use some part of the funds to help the orphanage and less privileged children in the world.
Please keep this proposal as a secret between us and delete it immediately in your mail box if you are not interested. But if you are interested give me an answer immediately.
I await your response.
You know, what if one day, one of these stupid emails was actually real? What if there’s actually a legitimately wealthy Nigerian somewhere who wants to deposit his funds in a tax haven like Monaco or something, and just has no concept of how the Internet actually works? I bet that’s happened at least once. Granted, this guy doesn’t claim to be Nigerian; he says he’s Burkinabé, but that’s beside the point. I think my favorite part of this email though, other than the fact that somehow a random guy in Africa managed to email my blog, is that he claims there is a deposit of ($11.8MM) in his bank. In finance, the parentheses indicate a negative number, and they are used to denote a loss. This means he has negative 11.8 million dollars. Which, considering Burkina Faso’s GDP, is a distinct possibility.

During the African Cup of Nations a couple years back, I arbitrarily chose Burkina Faso as the team I would support. They made it all the way to the final! I was pretty proud of my choice, and now they’re my “favorite” team in Africa. I’ve also recently started learning French. They speak French in Burkina Faso! I should ask this guy to be my pen pal.

Jason:

The Legend of Korra recently had its series finale after four seasons. One of the most talked about events during the finale was the final scene where the two main female characters, Korra and Asami, go off into the spirit world expressing(although subtly) their feelings for each other. Korra and the Avatar franchise has always pushed the boundaries in terms of the issues it has chosen to address (especially for a show targeted towards children). Themes have involved the loss of loved ones, holocaust/crimes against humanity, mental illness, philosophy/religion, racism, and now sexual orientation. In the end, there have been two sides to the debate. There are those that called the move progressive while others stating that such themes are harmful to impressionable mines such as children. In your opinion what is the impact the finale will have on television (especially children’s television) and what does it mean to for America as a whole that (although it’s very much still subtle and gradual) that such representation of sexual orientation was shown in a whole new light.

 First off, I want to take this moment to state KORRASAMI IS LEGIT, Y’ALL. Okay, now to answer the question. Although it’s never directly mentioned during the series, and although children might be too young to pick up on any romantic undertones between the two characters, Korra and Asami’s relationship is huge for kids’ television. Because even if kids can’t get the romance, these are still two strong, independent, badass women. If I ever have a daughter (Note: AHAHAHAHA ME AS A PARENT OH GOD), I’d want her to look up to characters like Korra or Asami, rather than some Disney princess or some shit. I want my hypothetical daughter to KICK ASS.

As for showing a broader spectrum of sexuality on children’s’ television, I think this is a step in the right direction. But there’s still a long way to go. Korra probably would have benefitted from being on Cartoon Network here (Both Adventure Time and Clarence have depicted openly gay or bisexual characters, although Adventure Time keeps it behind the scenes), because Nickelodeon is run by shitbags. Still, the majority of Americans support equal rights for the LBGTQ community–and those that don’t are horrible assholes and their opinions should be disregarded–so I think in the near future we’ll see it accepted as normal for kids’ shows. And then we can all look back at Legend of Korra for helping us get to that point!

Katie:

Team Edward or Team Jacob?

 The correct answer to this question is TEAM MOUSTACHE DAD!

Steve:

Who are the three celebrities that irritate you the most and why?

 Man, that’s a tough one. So many celebrities are just so irritating! And I’m super misanthropic, which doesn’t help the situation. Hmm. Well, Iggy Azalea off the top of my head because she’s racist and homophobic and awful in just about every conceivable way. I’m not a fan of Taylor Swift, but I wouldn’t say I find her irritating, so much as I hate her music and her rabid fan base. I just feel bad for Justin Bieber at this point. Does Roger Goodell count as a celebrity? If so, Roger Goodell because he’s either a liar or an incompetent buffoon who disregards both women and player safety at equally astounding rates. There, that’s two. Can I just pick all of Fox News for number three? No? Okay, fine, just Sean Hannity then. Fuck everything about Sean Hannity. I hope he gets sodomized by a pine tree.

Have a question you want answered? Click here to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com

This Week In Americaball (January 1-January 7)

Each Wednesday, I will be providing a run-down of the previous week’s top stories from around the NFL. This week will cover Stuart Scott and all the drama of Wildcard Weekend.

1.) Stuart Scott passes away at 49

There are people who brag about how celebrity deaths don’t affect them. They wear their cynicism like a badge of honor, proudly proclaiming their lack of empathy for a beloved public figure, failing to understand why so many people are upset, sad, or mourning. They ensure that everyone within their social circle knows that since they never knew the recently deceased celebrity, there’s no reason why they should be distressed. I don’t understand these people.

Stuart Scott passed away on the morning of Sunday, January 3^rd, 2015 after a seven-year-long battle with cancer. For those of you who don’t know, Stuart Scott was the greatest personality ESPN has ever had, and for how much shit I like to give them (ESPN is, after all, a faceless corporate monolith owned by Disney), the network has had some GREAT sportscasters throughout the years. Scott became famous for bringing a brand-new, younger, blacker, fresher style to a network that, up until that point, had been old, ornery, and white. And with his frequent “Boo-yahs!” and his off-the-wall catchphrases (“Cool as the other side of the pillow!”), the man made sports fun.

As a child, I always would wake up an hour earlier than I had to, in order to watch Sportscenter. Not to brag (TOTALLY to brag), but I was ahead of the curve on this one. My favorite sport has always been football, and I never really cared about basketball, baseball, or hockey. But I still wanted to fit in with the other kids at school, and most of them weren’t football fans. I did live in Phoenix after all, and though I was lucky enough to be from a place with a real team, most of my friends were stuck with the Cardinals–still playing at ASU’s stadium. Luckily, I had Stuart Scott there every morning to keep me up to date with the NBA, NHL, and MLB. Because he made these sports that I couldn’t care less about entertaining. Even as a kid, I could tell that he was having fun telling me, the viewer, about last night’s games. And that made it fun for me, the viewer, to hear.

There’s more to Stuart Scott than sports though. I mentioned Stuart Scott being black on ESPN before ESPN realized that black people could do more than play basketball. But I’m not the one to tell you the scope of the bullshit that Scott went through at the beginning of his career with the network. Keith Olbermann, however, is. And if you watch that video, note the tears in Olbermann’s eyes. Then watch Hannah Storm, Chris Berman, and Rich Eisen fighting to keep composure as they report on the passing of their friend, and realize that Stuart Scott was more than just a sportscaster. He was a pioneer, a trailblazer, and most importantly, a great person. Stuart Scott is awesome, and the world is worse for losing him.

In 2005, Scott hosted a New Year’s Eve countdown on ESPN. I watched it upstairs, because my parents were watching the Regis Philbin NYE Party in the living room. Fuck that noise. Anyway, I’m bringing this up, because with one minute left in 2005, Stuart Scott gave a 12-year-old me a New Year’s Resolution that I still try to keep a full decade later: Don’t boo anyone. Everybody is doing their best; everyone is trying. Be patient, and be supportive when you can. As much of an asshat as I can be, I’ve tried to live by that rule. And maybe that’s why I can’t understand people who say celebrity deaths never affect them. I never met Stuart Scott, but I am who I am because of who he is. His steadfast refusal to let cancer beat him was beautiful, and his death is a tragedy. So rest in peace, Stuart Scott. You always were as cool as the other side of the pillow.

2.) Wildcard Weekend

If we lived in a perfect world, this sentence would read “Thankfully, the pain of Stuart Scott’s passing was mitigated by a great weekend of football games.” Unfortunately, the world we live in is cold, desolate, and uncaring. These games SUCKED. The best game ended 30-17, and the Ravens won. Fuck everything about this week in Americaball.

Since fucking nothing else of note happened around the league, I’m going to give a game-by-game rundown of why this year’s Wildcard Weekend can go eat a dick.

Arizona Cardinals (16) at Carolina Panthers (27)

I love American football for the excitement and the drama inherent in the sport. Outcomes can come down to mere inches. “One yard short” will cost you a championship ring. Offensive schemes are meticulously planned and practiced; defenses must be hyperaware and able to react at a moment’s notice. A good game of American football will get your heart racing, your palms sweating, and keep you on the edge of your seat. I love the sport because of the drama.

This game was a comedy.

The Cardinals were the best team in the league at one point this season. Then Carson Palmer tore his ACL. So Drew Stanton came in and played competently. They weren’t the best team anymore, but they were easily top ten. Maybe even top five! Then Stanton went down with a knee injury too. The Cardinals started Ryan Lindley. In the playoffs. The Cardinals were also missing Andre Ellington. And Darnell Dockett. And EVERYBODY ELSE ON THE TEAM. I understand why God would hate Arizona, given the state’s tendency to invoke His name in order to further its own racist and homophobic agenda, but WOW. This team was cursed.

The Panthers are a shitpile. There’s no way to be nice about that. Seattle is going to beat them by 50. They won a playoff game, but that legitimizes NOTHING about this team. Beating the injury-fucked Cardinals is like winning an argument on the Internet. Yeah, you did it, but you still suck at life. That’s the Panthers. They suck at life, and they should all buy Ted Ginn a beer for fumbling a kickoff on the three-yard-line like a dipshit.

Baltimore Ravens (30) at Pittsburgh Steelers (17)

Fuck, the Ravens are going to win the Superbowl. Joe Flacco has become PLAYOFF JOE FLACCO and will now throw a dozen touchdowns in the next three games. He will then throw a dozen interceptions in week one of next season. It’s kinda his thing.

Anyway, this was the most fun game to watch, and it wasn’t especially close or good. 30-17 isn’t exactly a blowout, but it’s not not a blowout. Also, when Heath Miller and Ben Roethlisberger die of CTE at age 50, we can all collectively look at this game when the two CLEARLY CONCUSSED men were sent back onto the field to promptly turn the ball over in the stupidest ways possible. Because they were, you know, clearly concussed. PLAYER SAFETY! The Steelers’ team doctor should be shot.

Cincinnati Bengals (10) at Indianapolis Colts (26)

WHY COULDN’T THE CARDINALS PLAY THE BENGALS?! Christ, this team sucks in the postseason. This is the fourth consecutive year they’ve lost in the first round AND failed to score more than 13 points. They once lost to TJ Yates. Did you remember him? I didn’t! But he has more playoff wins than Marvin Lewis. I feel bad for Andy Dalton at this point. He’s never going to be a great quarterback, but he’s alright, and “alright” should be enough to win a playoff game. He actually looked pretty good in this one! AJ Green and Jermaine Gresham were both injured, so the Colts just quadruple-covered Mohamed Sanu, leaving Dalton to throw every pass to himself because nobody else on the team can catch a football. I’d feel bad for Bengals fans if I’d ever actually met one.

Also, does Andrew Luck think that brown mass growing from his Adam’s apple looks good? YOU DON’T PLAY HOCKEY, SHAVE YOU UGLY-ASS CAVE TROLL. His neckbeard makes me physically ill. Helluva good quarterback, though.

Detroit Lions (20) at Dallas Cowboys (24)

Fuck everything about this game. If you enjoyed this game, you’re a Cowboys fan, and if you’re a Cowboys fan, I hate you on principle. I hate how I had to root for the Lions to win (so the Packers could host Carolina instead of Dallas). I hate how Chris Christie was there rub his FUPA on Jerry Jones. I hate how the scoreline is forever marred by a litany of shit-awful calls that ALL went Dallas’ way. And I hate how Cowboys fans are just telling Lions fans to get over it.

I remember the Fail Mary. I remember wanting to punch every dickbag Seahawks fan (insofar as all Seahawks fans are dickbags) that told me “Well if you didn’t want the refs to affect the game, your team should have played better!” Fuck that argument. The LOLJK pass interference call was, statistically speaking, the single most important play of any game this weekend. And yeah, the Lions should have done a lot of things differently immediately afterwards (gone for it on 4^th and 1, not punted the ball 10 yards). But then, to top it off, the NFL admitted missing a blatant hold as the Cowboys converted a 4^th and 6 a few minutes later. The Lions got fucking robbed, and it should be them getting blown out by the Seahawks next week. Fuck this game for making me have to stand in solidarity with Lions fans.

The only good to come out of this game was that Tony Romo finally won a playoff game, so everyone can leave the guy alone. I like Tony Romo; we’re both from Bumblefuck, Wisconsin. And the man has carried the Cowboys for so long that he broke his back. Maybe now Cowboys fans will stop booing him. It’s what Stuart Scott would have wanted.

Click here to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com

This Week In Football (December 30-January 5)

Every Monday I will be providing a run-down of the previous week’s top stories from the wide world of soccer. This week will cover Barcelona and Real Madrid, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Lukas Podolski, and Rasmus Elm.

1.) Barcelona and Real Madrid

I have a confession to make: I spent the past week completely ignoring soccer in favor of the NFL playoffs. As a result, I spent the better part of last night desperately searching for stories to write about. It turns out I didn’t miss too much. I did, however, miss three giant upsets in Europe. Valencia beat Real Madrid; Real Sociedad topped Barcelona; and Tottenham Hotspur trashed Chelsea so badly that now whenever Jose Mourinho closes his eyes, all he can picture is Harry Kane.

At first, this was the game I wanted to cover. Spurs beat Chelsea FIVE TO GODDAMN THREE, which is a scoreline so insane that it literally defies all comprehension. Chelsea are a VERY good football team, whereas Spurs are the Premier League’s version of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Barcelona have looked shaky all season, and as for Real Madrid, well there’s no shame in a 2-1 loss away to Valencia.

But then I gave it some more thought. Chelsea are VERY good but they aren’t perfect. This team has some holes, however slight they may be. And as laughable as Spurs can be (read: extremely laughable), they aren’t really that bad. There isn’t all that much to talk about here. Spurs played a lot better than they normally do, and Chelsea played a lot worse. These things happen from time to time. But Barcelona and Real Madrid? These losses belay significant underlying problems for both clubs.

We’ll start with Barcelona. Barcelona’s defensive back line is ass. And not like, good ass or anything. This ass isn’t ever going to #BREAKTHEINTERNET. That defense is old, saggy man-ass that hasn’t been shaved in the better part of a decade. It’s really bad, is the point I’m trying to make. Still, we’re right in the midst of the winter transfer window, and Barcelona is arguably the most prestigious club in the world. They shouldn’t have any problems getting a couple good centerbacks, right? WRONG. Barcelona is banned from signing anyone new until January of 2016 for breaking FIFA’s rules about signing underage players. And also that whole thing about funding orgies for Neymar’s dad. I mean, that’s not why they were banned; it’s just something that (allegedly) happened that I like to bring up from time to time. Anyway, they have no defenders. Barcelona is, in no uncertain terms, fucked. A loss to a Real Sociedad side managed by David Moyes (note: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) is only the beginning of what’s going to be a LONG year for the Catalan giants.

As for Real Madrid, I just mentioned that a loss away to Valencia is no reason to be ashamed, and I stand by that statement. Valencia is a helluva good team (currently 4^th in the table, which is good enough for Champions League qualification), and they’ve only lost one home game since April. There’s nothing wrong with dropping points here. However, Real Madrid straight-up did not give half a shit about this match. They were lethargic, didn’t track back, and didn’t utilize their best players. Granted, they were without Luka Modrić, but that’s no excuse. Don’t have Luka Modrić? OH DARN, GUESS WE’LL HAVE TO PLAY KROOS OR ILLARAMENDI OR ISCO OR KHEDIRA WHATEVER WILL WE DO?! Real Madrid is arguably the single best team in the ENTIRE WORLD. At least on paper. But wow, did they look like shit against Valencia.

2.) Steven Gerrard to leave Liverpool for MLS

Steven Gerrard has been at Liverpool since he got off Noah’s Ark. But the 76-year-old midfielder has confirmed that at the end of the season, he’s going to retire to the MLS to make like $7 million a year to be kind of shit. That’s also not an exaggeration; the way contracts work in the American league is rockfuck stupid. Basically, each team in the MLS gets two Designated Players (DP’s), and they can pay these guys a fuckton of money. Clint Dempsey, Tim Cahill, and Jermaine Jones are all DP’s, for example. Teams can also get a third DP by paying a fee to the league itself. Everyone else on the team makes $60,000 per annum, since clubs only get about $3 million to pay the wages of the entire rest of the squad. Steven Gerrard is going to be a DP somewhere–probably at NYCFC because lol–and get paid an astronomically high wage, despite the fact that he hasn’t been good since 2010.

3.) Frank Lampard extends loan deal at Manchester City

Speaking of NYCFC, they are a fucking sham. This team doesn’t even exist yet (they’re slated to be an expansion team in the upcoming season), and they’re already fucking their fans over in ways that would make the Washington Redskins proud. How they already have fans despite not actually, you know, existing is beyond me, but that’s beside the point. The point is the club signed a contract with former Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard, who would begin the season as the face of the team. Since the MLS season starts in March, Lampard was loaned to Manchester City for the first half of the 2014-2015 Premier League season. Now, this makes sense. Lampard is already old as fuck, so the team wanted him to at least retain fitness before he retir–I MEAN TRANSFERS to the MLS. Fine, no problems so far.

Of course Lampard just extended his loan deal with Manchester City until the end of the Premier League season. Which means he’s going to miss at least the first three months of the MLS season, and will also be tired and worn down by the time he actually gets to the team, because he’s 36 and plays quite often at ManCity. NYCFC fans are PISSED (and also really shouldn’t exist just yet), but this is really something they should have seen coming. NYCFC is literally owned by ManCity. They are nothing more than a farm team for the capitalistic nightmare that is Manchester City. This team will never give two fucks about its fans, and man did they waste no time in dicking their supporters. I mean, fucking your fans over before you EVEN EXIST? That’s got to be some kind of record.

4.) Lukas Podolski transfers to Inter Milan

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: I FUCKING LOVE Lukas Podolski. Everyone does! He’s pretty much the coolest person in all of Germany AND Poland. Some Bayern fans are still mad about how he sucked really bad at Munich (he did), but ignore these people. Their opinions are irrelevant. Mine are better.

Anyway, a few years ago, after 1. FC Köln was relegated to the German 2^nd league for being a horribly mismanaged shitshow, Podolski transferred to Arsenal. He instantly became the most likeable player on the team, known for always smiling, riding the Tube around despite being a millionaire, and using the cannon he calls a left leg to decapitate either the opposing keeper or some poor bastard in Row H. The problem, however, was that he never really fit the system and GOD FORBID Arsène Wenger adapt to his players’ strengths. Podolski was employed predominately as either a solo striker–which he can’t do–or as a left winger. He’s an okay left winger at best. What he lacks in, like, everything he makes up for with his finishing abilities. The thing is, there’s more to football than just finishing. Because of this, Podolski was often relegated to the bench, for use as a substitute if Arsenal needed a goal late in the game.

Podolski is best used as a second striker in a 4-4-2. Put the man in front of the goal and let him worry about nothing but scoring. He won’t disappoint you! I hope Inter Milan realizes this and uses him correctly. Podolski is just the coolest, and I want to see him succeed somewhere. He deserves it.

5.) Rasmus Elm leaves CSKA Moscow, possibly sport entirely

Swedish international Rasmus Elm has the greatest name in the world and is really good at soccer. He also can’t run without his stomach bleeding internally. On January 3^rd of this year, Elm and CSKA Moscow mutually agreed to terminate his contract with six months remaining, in order to allow the midfielder to return to Sweden and recover from a mysterious stomach illness–believed to be complications from Celiac Disease.

Similar to Eric Berry’s lymphoma, this is a terrifying reminder that certain diseases don’t care who you are. Rasmus Elm is a world class athlete who plays for one of the most successful teams in the world. His diet is measured to the microcalorie, he’s in better shape than any of us could ever hope to be, and he can’t run without his stomach bleeding. That sucks. If you’re in that kind of shape, you should be exempt from diseases like this. Also similar to Eric Berry, Rasmus Elm is awesome and everybody likes him. Hopefully he can make a full recovery soon. Soccer needs him and his cool-ass name.

Click to email the Answering Machine at theansweringmachineblog@gmail.com