Excerpt from an email I sent my friends today

vets day off is nice. set up my new couch today, which upgrades my apartment from "cave" to "pad." egg [my brother] and rita were looking at the monuments this afternoon, so they stopped by and checked my place out. i was like "check out this baller-ass leather couch" and rita comes back with "fuck yo couch, check out this engagement ring." egg popped the question down by the reflecting pool and rita answered in the affirmative, then they toasted with wine poured from a nalgene bottle and took a bunch of pictures. they're feeling pretty good, and the families are pretty pleased too. they're gonna be running around a lot for the rest of the day, so egg said i could go ahead and put it on email. congratulations, egg.

This Pat is bananas

In my lifetime, Randy Moss is the only receiver who's so effortlessly good that he makes quarterbacks look bad. Every week I look at highlights and Brady's numbers and think "how hard can it be to chuck it to double-covered Randy Moss?" The knock on Daunte Culpepper was always "sure his numbers are good, but he's throwing to Cris Carter and Randy Moss." If not for the fact that Moss was a rookie at the time, Randall Cunningham's comeback would have been seen only for exactly what it was - the arrival of a receiving talent so great that it could turn a floor-tiling retiree into an MVP.

Don't get me wrong, Brady's greatness is beyond dispute, but I for one will not be awed if he breaks Manning's single-season TD record, and it's because he's throwing to Randy Moss. Hell, it'll practically have an asterisk.

Randy has always fascinated and frustrated me. I generally believe in giving troubled college kids a clean slate. Hell, how many of us weren't assholes in college? I went to a school famous for its lame nightlife and academically focused students, and I can say that if over four years you got kicked out of a bar or two, had a drug- or alcohol-related arrest, or got into a scrape you were hardly outside the mainstream. Yet there are plenty of writers and talking heads who will wink-wink yearn for the wild old days and in the next breath criticize players for living the life about which they reminisce. So from day one I saw Randy as a shat-upon victim.

Then he came to the league and established himself as the most physically perfect wide receiver ever, and earnestly claimed a reputation as a syphilitic dick. But when he hit bottom as a Raider, it hit me: This is a gifted kid in a remedial class; of course he's going to act out and pout. Now he's with the other geniuses (who coincidentally are also syphilitic dicks), and he's flourishing. It's as logical as it is galling.

Scattered football observations

I don't care that the Skins needed overtime to beat the Jets. Portis finding his form is what will carry over to next week. He showed his vintage speed and physicality today.

The Skins' secondary didn't have a great day, but it was good to see Laron Landry show a nasty streak. He's had some decent hits this season, but he was popping people all day today.

Rodney Harrison slapped the ref on the ass after getting a no-call in the end zone.

Bill Belichick throws like a girl.

Robert Mathis just sacked the living shit out of Tom Brady on the Pats first play from scrimmage.

Joseph Addai is running roughshod over the Pats so far. That shouldn't be surprising, but it kind of is.

More later.

I wrote this when it looked like the Redskins were going to lose. Perhaps my football fanhood is unhealthy

1. I love the team and will never abandon them, but...

2. They won three Super Bowls during my childhood, and have made the playoffs just twice since then. (I am 29)

3. They are the most underachieving team in football. Last year, coming off an 11-5 season and a playoff victory, they went five and fucking eleven. I predicted they were going to the Super Bowl. They never fail to make an ass out of me.

4. Their personnel decisions are farcical. They are currently paying Brandon Lloyd $70 billion to stay off the field and poison the locker room. Last year they made Adam Archuleta the highest paid white nonquarterback ever. I'm certain that other GM's thank God and Allah for Vinny Cerrato, Dan Snyder and their retarded organizational structure.

5. I got excited by the signings of Brandon Lloyd, Honky Archuleta, 36-year-old Bruce Smith, 33-year-old Deion Sanders, and Trung Canidate. Smith was so old he had literally started shrinking.

6. Despite mismanagement and consistent failure, they are the most profitable team in sports.

7. I contribute to this clusterfuck by owning a Portis jersey, a 'Skins sweatshirt, a Super Bowl XXVI championship video, and a goddamn Redskins cornhole set, complete with Redskins bean bags.

8. Dan Snyder takes my money and showers it on Republicans.

9. Gameday at the stadium sucks. It costs a mortgage, parking's shitty, there's no mass transit, and a hangover sets in during the inevitable postgame gridlock . It's such a shitty situation that I routinely decline tickets to see my favorite team in any sport.

10. Despite all this, we all toil on a decade-long waiting list for season tickets.

11. Marty Schottenheimer is the best coach we've had in the past 14 years, and we fired him for Steve Spurrier.

12.

Cheers!

You can tell I had a lot of blogging clogging up my mind, what with almost half a dozen posts in one afternoon. These fingers are burning.

An exciting development in my neighborhood - we got a corner bar, The Red Derby. It's kind of a funky place: mostly dark red and narrow as a shotgun shack, 70's movies playing on a wall, chalkboards listing the collection of random delicious beers (all in cans). I haven't developed an opinion of the crowd, mainly because it's not the sort of place where you sit around scoping and judging. Cute girls, though.

I've never had a corner bar within a short walk. I used to live up the block from DC Boathouse, but that was patrician and primarily a restaurant. I don't know how to treat a corner bar. I know I'll like it, though.

I know this dude

A couple of times I've met this guy Tom Perriello, and I call him a friend. He's running for Congress against everyone's favorite bigot, Virgil Goode (VA 5th). To know Tom is to be very impressed by him. He is an honorable and brilliant person, and he will make a great Congressman if elected.

This week Tom blogged at TPMCafe's 'Table For One' about his politics, positions, vision and faith. If you're at all a public-minded person, you really should give him a read.

On conferences

I worked until 11 on Thursday and Friday blogging just isn't going to happen very often, so I don't feel at all like a slacker for not posting in a couple of days, but nonetheless I need to catch up.

Not much in the way of good football today, but I'll probably catch part of LSU vs 'Bama. I got into SEC ball when I lived in Arkansas, and I enjoy the hell out of it. It's the best football around. In the span of my football fanhood, Alabama, Florida (twice), Tennessee and LSU have won or shared national championships, and Georgia and Auburn are two of the strongest programs without national championships over that ongoing span.

And it's pretty damn violent:





I watched the game in the latter video with a Georgia fan and an Auburn fan, and when the receiver went down my Georgia friend yelled "He's dead. Holy shit, he is really dead."