Nostalgia Firday: SNES College Slam

Back in the heyday of the SNES, one game ruled the basketball scene: NBA Jam TE. This was before NBA Live dominated the scene because people just weren’t interested in having realistic stat tracking and game play mixed in with low quality 16 bit graphics. NBA Live was known as NBA Showdown at the time, and that’s when gamers realized that if you want to portray realism in every sense, graphics had to be up to par too. That’s why silly games like NBA Jam were created.

If you don’t know what NBA Jam is, I feel very very sorry for you. What kind of childhood did you have? You probably were that kid that couldn’t score an SNES because a) your parents wouldn’t let you buy one, or b) your parents were total dicks and forbade you from such childhood discoveries such as video games, temporary tattoos, and those gums that looked like cigarettes.

NBA Jam also capitalized on the on going crazy of arcade styles sports. It paved the way for such classics as NBA Blitz and Daytona USA, sports games that in no sense of the way portray realism. I highly doubt at the real Dayton speedway, if you crashed, your car would just harmlessly flip in the air and you’d only have a few dents to show for it.

NBA Jam was a great game too. 40 ft slams, balls being lit on fire, elbows being thrown around like it's a Lakers-Suns game and Raja Bell was in, yup, the game had it all. A little known fact though is that Midway and Acclaim, trying to capitalize on the slamma jamma craze, released somewhat of a sequel called College Slam.

Basically, College Slam was NBA Jam with different teams. Video game companies used to do this a lot, you know. I can remember the countless versions of Street Fighter that were essentially the same game, only to be released as a completely new game. Turbo edition my ass. College Slam let you choose from 32 different teams, and low and behold, Cal was one of them!

If you’re familiar with the NBA Jam format, College Slam is no different. You get two players on the court and its no holds barred. Thus, you had a choice of 2 Cal stars to choose from. However, just like every other NCAA game out there, players’ names were not licensed, thus you had to fill it in yourself. This had its ups and downs. The ups being you could fill your Cal squad with a Cal legends team with players such as Jason Kidd, Shareef Abdul Raheem, um, Rod Benson. Or you could be totally immature and put in a bunch of fake names like Ass Wipe, Amanda Hugnkiss, Hugh Jass, etc. If you’re like me, with the mind of a 10 year old, you’ll choose the latter.

College Slam in every respect was a fun game, but it was no NBA Jam. It just wasn’t fun knowing you couldn’t dominate everyone with the likes of Horace Grant and Latrell Sprewell (pre choking days). Oh well, it’s worth a check out if you have the opportunity.

For those of you expecting a Cal post, expect one Monday. That is all.

At Lunch We Dine On Turtle Soup

Mmmmmmmmmmmm, Cambell Lovin' Good.

DELICIOSO!!!!

It even comes with a cute little turtle shaped bread, who's head I will bite off!

YUMMMMM!

Some people think this is in bad taste, but lemme tell ya, nothing sure tastes bad about it! Wakka wakka! Go Bears, beat the Terps.

Don't Forget To Fill Out Your CBI Bracket

If the NCAA Tournament is the Godfather and Godfather II of basketball tournaments, then the NIT would no doubt be the Godfather III of tournaments. Basically, the NIT would be the inferior counter part of a far superior product. Sadly though, there is a tournament even more neglected than the NIT, the CBI. Think of it as the Mafia! of college basketball tournaments. Yeah, I made a Mafia! reference, yeah, THAT movie, the one with Jay Mohr. How that guy has a job and a bangin’ wife, I do not know.

Mmmmmm………..where was I?

While Cal is parading around as this year’s Bay Area darlings in the Big Dance, Stanford will be representing the bay in this year’s CBI. Let’s take a look at their bracket:

As you can see, the CBI only has 16 teams, and I’m pretty sure the selection criteria was just anyone who was a willing participant. The CBI selection committee probably had to fight tooth and nail just to get 16 aboard the tourney ship. Stanford faces a first round match against Boise State this evening, a team only known for their football team and for having a blue football field.

Thus, to once again show that we at The Play in CA are completely not biased in our coverage of teams other than Cal, we encourage you to support the Cardinal. You can watch them play on CBS. Oh wait, ESPN. Uh, ESPN 2. ESPN Ocho? Oh, HDNet, which is a website, not a TV station. I think. Um, cool.

Go Cards… I guess.

The Other California Teams March Madness Preview!

Since most, okay, all of our writers here at The Play in California are Cal alumni, you’ll no doubt notice that we talk about Cal Basketball a lot. I mean a lot. I MEAN A LOT. Regardless, we like to take pride in the fact that we’re a California sports blog and not a sports blog for Cal. We also like to take pride in the fact that even though we say we offer fair sports coverage for all of California, we in fact are only kidding ourselves. When you have a 50 hour work week and the only sports you can keep up with your own teams, it gets tough to cover everyone else. So lay off!

However, just because we enjoy watching our Cal Golden Bears so much doesn’t mean we can’t take some time to cover the other guys. Thus, with the tournament coming up in a mere two days, I, Cayceecal, would like to offer to you the Other California Teams March Madness Preview!

UCLA Bruins (I’m sure the bear shown above is some sort of pedophile)

Record: 25-8
Coach: Ben Howland
Key Players: Darren Collison (G), Josh Shipp (G), Alfred Aboya (F-C)

Overview: Everyone (ESPN, Yahoo, Sports Illustrated) has been saying that UCLA is primed for an upset at the hands of VCU this opening round, but I say fuck that. Not for any logical reason really. VCU does have the upset factor instilled them with a similar 11 over 6 upset two years ago against Duke, and they are a perimeter shooting offense, the type the UCLA can struggle with, but seriously man, UCLA is terribly underrated this year simply because they come from the Pac-10. For some reason, in the past few years, whenever UCLA is in it to win it, they’re primed for a good run. They’ve made it to the Final Four the past 3 years, what’s to stop them now? Nothing, other than the fact that they kind of suck, I guess. So they won’t make it to the Big Big Dance, but hey, they’re not getting downed by VCU either. Suck on that, Dan Wetzel.

Prediction: A second round loss at the hands of Villanova

USC Trojans (I had know idea JBL coached the Trojans)

Record: 22-10
Coach: Tim Floyd
Key Players: Taj Gibson (F), DeMar DeRozan (F), Lil Romen (G) – just kidding, he sucks

Overview: After their miracle run in the Pac-10, the USC Trojans some how slipped into the tournament much like how their namesake slips into…. uh, you get the joke. This year, USC has been kind of like the Zach Morris of the Pac-10. Like Morris, they have unlimited potential, yet their immature, lazy attitude gives them the perception of underachiever. Then, just like a special Saved By The Bell episode, they end up getting a 1500 on the SAT’S causing everyone (including an enraged Jessie Spano) left wondering what the fuck. Well guess what folks, USC is ready to play now, and in another extremely foolish guarantee that will no doubt cause me to lose next month’s rent, I’m saying they are Sweet 16 material. By the way, this blog is not responsible for any broken legs you may suffer from Johnny the Shark.

Prediction: A Sweet 16 loss to Kansas

CSU Northridge Matadors (This is the best I could get with a Google Image search. I shit you not)

Record: 17-13
Coach: Too Lazy to Wikipedia It
Key Players: Rob Haynes(G), Tremaine Townsend (F), Josh Jenkins (G)

Overview: CSU is a school from California. They are from Northridge. Their mascot is the Matador. Um, and they’re playing Memphis in the first round. Yup, that’s all that needs to be said about them.

Prediction: NCAA Champions. And when I say champion, I actually mean they will be embarrassed handily by the Memphis Tigers.

St. Mary’s Gaels (Get ready to dance!)
Recor- oh yeah…

….just remembered about the not making the tournament and getting screwed over by the selection committee thing. My bad.

So there you have it. Now that all the unimportant California schools are out of the way, get ready for a ten page, in-depth analysis (now with new charts and graphs!) of Cal’s tournament chances tomorrow. Told you we were fair and balanced.

Nostalgia Friday: A Long, Long Time Ago

We travel to a time ages ago, to a place that seems like a distant dream, to a place that seems like it echoes only in our mind.

I'm talking about February 26, 2008, the last time Cal played USC.

And we won!!!

Uh, yesterday, not so much:

Get ready #8 seed, because Cal is coming after ya!

The Day I Broke Patrick Christopher's Computer

WARNING: The following article you are about to read has very little to do with sports, other than the fact that it stars a college basketball player. It is probably the nerdiest thing you will ever read on this site, but if you’re someone from the blogging world, then at least your inherent geekiness will soften the blow. You have been warned.

As Cal gets ready for the Pac-10 tournament today, I’d like to share this anecdote for all you Cal fans involving a personal encounter with a certain Cal Basketball Hero.

Way back in October before the college basketball season started, I was assigned a simple task from my old roommate, fix her friend’s computer. Both of us are Cal graduates, and unfortunately for me, I graduated with a Computer Science major. Graduating from this major comes with many positives and negatives. The positives are ease of finding a job compared to, oh philosophy major, vast knowledge of the internet, and free up to date software given to us from Berkeley. The negatives are dealing with nerds in your class, being labeled a nerd, and the assumption that you know how to fix everyone’s computer. Everyone makes this assumption, EVERYONE.

Normally, when someone asks me if I can fix their computer, I’m usually a little hesitant to do so, mainly because I don’t want to be held responsible if I accidentally destroy said computer. However, since it was my roommate was phoning in a favor, I happily obliged. I was even more excited when I found out the client was none other than Cal’s favorite number 23, Patrick Christopher.

Before I continue, I should probably back track a bit. Pat and my old roommate have been pretty good friends for some time. Thus, it was a common thing to have Pat stop by unexpectedly to hang out. Here’s a picture of him chilling at our apartment for those who think I’m pulling shenanigans:

He’s using my roommates Mac because his computer is clearly busted, thus the point of this article. And yeah, our apartment is really messy.

At first, I was rather star struck to the idea that the star of Cal Basketball was loungin’ in our apartment on random days, but after a while, it became a regular thing and wasn’t that big of a deal. I also have to say that Pat is a really cool guy. He’s down to earth and very mellow, and most of all, a very humbled kind of guy. Thus, when my roommate told me his computer had a virus, it didn’t really bother me to offer some help.

The next day when I got home from work, Pat came over to drop off his computer so that I could repair it. I thought some simple anti virus software would do the trick. I did it before for another friend’s computer, so why should this be so difficult? Just download some anti virus software then presto, computer is good as new!

Two minutes later, I sent Pat’s computer into the blue screen of death. For those of you unfamiliar with the blue screen of death, it’s basically a screen that pops up after the Windows XP loading screen is finished:

After you get this little baby, you can pretty much say goodbye to windows, because you ain’t gettin’ back in it. All you can do is a reformat, and of course tell Cal’s star basketball player that you just destroyed his computer.

Pat was pretty calm about the situation. He kept saying “don’t worry about it” but deep inside, I’m sure he was thinking “worry about it!” Pat also informed me that it wasn’t really the functionality of the computer he was worried about, but rather the data on the computer. Within the heaping wreck of a hardware that I turned the computer into were cherished photos, files, and probably some game footage. In college, there is nothing more valuable to a student than memories, and I may have blue screen of deathed them away from existence.

After that day, I told Pat that the problem would probably need a few more days while I scrambled to find a solution. Reformatting was easy, but finding a way to pull the data was not.

My first choice was to call some data recovery experts. How expensive could it be right? 50, 60 bucks? Try 2000. Wow. I can’t really fathom what kind of data would be worth that much, unless you had some Jack Bauer nuclear codes in your computer.

My friend Dan then informed me getting out with hardware. If I could pull out his hard drive and plug it into my computer using an adapter, it might work. Here is the adapter he pointed me to:

It’s a basic IDE&SATA – USB convert it. Think of it as a way to turn your internal hard drive into an external one, thus allowing another computer to treat it as a travel drive that you can use to transfer files from hard drive to hard drive. In all, Dan’s suggestion made sense, so it was worth a shot. And the adapter only cost 20 bucks, much cheaper than trying the Jack Bauer option (the data recovery, not torturing my computer for the information).

After I got it set up, I plugged the adapter into my computer and prayed for mercy, only to be rejected like a Mark Madsen jump shot. Apparently, Pat’s hard drive was partitioned more than once, making some discs unrecognizable to the standard Windows XP operating system. Crap. My experimenting failed. All the meanwhile, Pat was patiently waiting for his computer back, continuing to tell me he was cool with what’s going on. Good thing Pat was being such a good sport. If I was fixing Tyler Hansbrough’s computer, I’m sure my liver would have been disemboweled already.

At that point I was stuck. Really stuck. Stuck on how to fix his computer, stuck on how to break the news that I couldn’t fix his computer, stuck on dealing with the possibility that Pat was going to have me banned from Cal basketball games for the rest of the season. My last shot was asking my friend who actually worked for Microsoft. If anyone could help me navigate through a Windows error, it must be him, right?

And I was right! The only ironic thing was that his fix involved NOT using Windows. Instead, he told me to create a Linux boot cd, run the Linux OS straight from the CD, and then I would be able to use a Windows like operating system to transfer files from Pat’s internal hard drive to an external hard drive.

Genius. Two hours later, Pat’s files were safe and his computer was reformatted.

So what’s the moral of this story? Never offer to fix someone’s computer. Ever. EVERRRR! Unless you happen to be my friend from Microsoft, and not me.

Oh, and the other moral is that Patrick Christopher is a really cool guy. From what my old roommate tells me, Pat’s computer is a little messed up still from my workings (once again, sorry Pat). If someone messed up my computer like I did, well I would be pretty pissed. Not Pat though. Off the court, he’s calm, laid back, and a nice guy.

On the court, though, he’ll fuck you up. Word.

Ugh, Now That The Bubble Has Hit The Fan, My Life Is Meaningless

Yeah, I saw that Butler lost today. I got so upset, I've been passing nothing but kidney stones, and now it burns when I pee. Shiet.

It's too bad the bubble has officially burst, so to speak. Damn, that analogy is pitiful, no wonder ESPN won't let me write full articles. Now I have to scramble back and predict some more meaningless bubble talk. Let's just throw in some wild cards, like saying San Jose State is going to win the WAC tournament. It can happen. Is St. Mary's going to make it or not? The fuck if I care, just look at their SOS to figure it out. Their RPI is to college basketball what my journalistic acumen is to college basketball. I don't even know what that means, MAN.

Excuse me for all this, I've been hitting the bottle pretty hard after the Horizon League Finals. I really believed in the system. I believed that if you work hard through life you'll be rewarded by having a coasty job as an analysts who predicts who is going to make it into the tournament. What, that job is already occupied by Lunardi?

Well at least I had integrity, okay? I had Butler in as a auto-bid, I mean I put my reputation on the line! And now it's gone, all gone!

Ugh, wake me up when it's last call at O' Malley's pub, because until then, I'll be swimming in my own sulking misery.

2 Cal Players Shine -- First Team All PAC-10

It's time to celebrate for Cal.

But wait, let's backtrack and take a look at last year so we can get a sense of how far Cal has come along this season. If you do not know, former Coach Ben Braun was the reason for much of my (venting) blogs last year. He led our Cal bball team to a 6-12 Pac-10 record, and finally (& I give myself a pat on the back b/c my venting was not in vain) he got the boot. Now, we shouldn't be celebrating in another's misery, but come on! I blame Ben Braun for not maximizing on the potential and skills of the Cal bball team. So Ben Braun's kick to the curb was long overdue. He needed out, and Cal needed a miracle.

Braun, "I just don't get it. Why can't I get the Bears to win?"

Here comes Coach Al Montgomery. He was the man at Stanford who left to coach the Golden State Warriors. And well, the recap is: he wasn't so successful in that NBA endeavor. He took to some commentating and with Braun's exit, Big Monty got offered the Cal coaching job. Fingers crossed, many looked to this experienced coach as Cal's possible basketball savior. And to his credit, there was a Cal basketball renaissance.

Patrick Christopher and Jerome Randle have now been named to the All Pac-10 First Team.
To be honest, I really don't understand what this means, except that it's a good thing. And according to my friend, it's a really good thing because only 10 players from the Pac-10 are chosen and honored with this accolade.

Jerome Randle probably hitting a 3. He did this frequently

As an ardent Cal bball fan, I am proud of the accomplishments of these two players. Last year upset me: one player shined. But this year, Monty made things different. With teamwork, the Bears improved and finished in the Pac-10 with an 11-7 record, and 22-9 overall.


As Cal steps into the Staples Center on Thursday, 3/12/09, at 6pm, we will see how they fare against Lil Romeo and his Trojans. As the #3 seed in the Pac-10, hopefully the Bears prove to critics that they can compete all season long, no matter if it's in LA or wherever the NCAA sends them.

Go Patrick!
Let's feel that energy on Thursday!

YouTube Sundays: Digger Phelps Get Hyphy

Too bad Cal lost to UCLA...

Nostalgia Friday: The Music Of Tetris On The NES

The original Tetris on NES is no doubt a classic to many gamers around the world. While this masterpiece has no particular relation to sports or California, I’m pretty sure athletes and Californians enjoyed this game as much as I did when I was a kid. Okay, maybe not so much the athletes, because if you were a kid on the NES and you played Tetris, you were a dork. When Megaman, Mario, and Link were calling all the cool kids to play them, the L-Block was bringing in the intellectually stimulated (aka dweebs).

Like any good game, Tetris was a challenge. Also like any good game, Tetris had great music. Back in the days of NES, music selection was scarce. You didn’t have grandiose soundtracks like you do nowadays. These days, the Final Fantasy games have award winning composers creating their soundtracks. Back then, it was usually just a lonely sound engineer figuring out how to make the next midi file sound slight different from the other.

But like I said before, Tetris was the exception. In the next 3 paragraphs, I will share and compare the three musical classics.

TETRIS TYPE A

What many people forget about the original Tetris on the NES is that it never had the classic jingle that is normally associated with Tetris. You know what I’m talking about, that jingle that sounds like it’s straight from a Russian Communist Theme Song Booklet. Here’s a sample below:



That’s the orchestrated remix found on Smash Brothers. Pretty crisp and classy. Nope, the original Type A sound on the NES was more like this;



I used to always associate this song with Christmas because it sounded like it belonged in the Nutcracker. Maybe it is in the Nutcracker. I don’t know, I’m not cultured enough to really tell. It’s a sad world when you get all your opera and ballet music from video games, but I’ll deal with it. I give it *** stars (out of 4).

TETRIS TYPE B



Type B is a classic. It’s peppy and fast, the kind of music that makes you really feel like you have to cram out the Tetris juice since the music makes you think so damn rushed. It’s the kind of song you want at pressure time because damnit, it’s you just FEEL like you have to think faster due to the tempo. The only problem with this song is I couldn’t never really figure out its origins. It sounds like some kind of old folksy olde English dance song mixed in with Persian strings. Yeah, strike 2 on the culture awareness. In any case, it’s my favorite **** stars.

TETRIS TYPE C



Ugh, the worst song. Every time I play this song, it’s so hard to stay awake, and it’s even harder when I realize I’m playing Tetris. No Stars!

Hopefully that last song didn’t bore you out so much that you’re on the keyboard ready to doze off. Remember, it’s the music that made you sleep, not the article. In any case, video game music lives forever, and this nerd can enjoy his nostalgia for another day.

Update: I forgot the Tetris song NOT on this game was also used in a classic Simpsons bit. Enjoy!

Sorry 49ers, I Can't Play In This Den of Sin!

Hi again my brothers. You may have heard the news that yesterday, I respectfully decided to sign with the Cardinals, ending my week long search for football salvation. It was a tough decision, but as I told the SF Gate, "I just felt God say, 'You're supposed to be in Arizona.'" When the holy creator of all that is good and right tells you you have to stay in Arizona, you do it. Unless you’re a dirty hedonist!

Excuse me for that outburst.

Even before my decision, I already knew that my heart was set in the desert. I thought I could save San Francisco, but I’ve come to realize that some things just can’t be saved. I realized this on my visit their the past day.

A few days earlier.

Thank god (and I did thank him) that the headquarter visit is over! Mr. York sure does love to talk, and it was boring me. I had to think about which Bible verse I would e-mail to Larry just to pass the time. Well at least that’s over, now it’s on to sight seeing. Let’s see, I guess I’ll first head over to Union Square…

Save the planet, save the planet!

Gad zooks, what is this debauchery?! These young women are barely clothed! I can see their shoulders and cleavage and everything. Overload, overload! Feeling woozy, must get out of here, quick Kurt, use you’re football acumen to find an escape.

Phew, that’s better.

This is your Cable Car Driver. Next stop, Broadway.

Ahhh, what’s this! Women?!! Strip clubs?!?! Boobies?! My eyes are burning, aggh, I have to get off this hell ride.

Jumps off cable car while it is still moving down a steep hill. Rolls down hill and falls face first into the ground is unconscious. Three hours later….

Ugh, where am I? What happened? My face is so sore, I think I need medical assistance.

The ground begins to faintly rumble.

What’s that? It feels like the earth is moving. Is this an earthquake? Wait, what’s that coming at me?

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY'RE COMING RIGHT AT ME!!!!!!!!!!!! I GOTTA GET AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WORST DAY EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And that was that. After I ran for my life away from the gay pride parade, I hopped on the next flight available back to Arizona. There you have it football fans, the contract signing journey of Kurt Warner has ended. Next time I head to the city by the bay, I’ll be ready:

Cell phone rings.

Hold on real quick, I have a picture message coming in from the Arizona Church Community:

Looks like Leinart’s acting up again, to the Christ-mobile!

I'd Love to Play In San Francisco, Just Do Something About All Those Sinners!

Hello my brothers. There has been a lot of talk lately about my future and where I plan to play football next year. The Cardinals have yet to close me in on a deal, so I want to look at my options. I’ve been on a pilgrimage of some sort, an exodus as you will, just like our savior’s savior Moses. In this way, I feel like my journey to find another team hasn’t only been a journey about football, but rather more of a spiritual type of journey.

That is why I decided to make San Francisco my first stop on my quest for the higher plane. Let me tell you right now, San Francisco is a beautiful city. The weather is none too dry yet none too cold. The landscape is breathtaking with several nice views among the hilly streets. The architecture is truly a holy wonder in itself. I mean just look at this one:

Awe-inspiring. Too bad that ugly building behind it ruins the shot. Most importantly though, San Francisco is the perfect place for me for this simple fact: there are so many heathens here! I am, after all, on a mission to not only find redemption among myself, but also among my fellow brothers and sisters who also live on God’s green earth. And just look at this place. No seriously, look at it!

The God that fills my heart up with the holy spirit weeps. This city needs my divine powers more than ever.

Every district must be purified. I go to Chinatown and what do I see? Bootleggers and types of meet that only Satan would eat. God intended that man would not subject themselves to thievery, and guess what, watching a stolen copy of Apocolypto is thievery! No ifs, ands, or buts. And have you seen what people eat when they have Dim Sum?

The Church does not approve. I’ll stick with my ice milk, thank you very much. Soon, you will too.

Then there’s the Broadway district. If I sign with the Niners, I personally plan to make it my goal that all the adult clubs on Broadway be replaced by either churches, bible youth group facilities, or a gyms so that upcoming Christian Rock Groups can have concerts in them. These harlots must be put away!

People say that San Francisco was the leader in the sexual revolution. Well Kurt Warner is here to lead another kind of revolution, one that promotes abstinence and not these dirty dens of sins.

And don’t get my started about the Castro.

No seriously, don’t, I have a notice from my lawyer telling me to refrain from commenting about the Castro. I don’t want to pull a Tim Hardaway or anything.

Fear not though city by the bay, Jesus was able to save man from all his sins, and I plan to do the same. I’ll leave you with a powerful quote. It’s one of my favorites:

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. (Ephesians 6:18)” Think about it my brothers.

San Francisco, your savior is found!

I'm So Kind Of Excited I Could Calmly Walk Into A Wall Of Some Sort

So this guy is my beloved Kansas City Chiefs’ new quarterback:

Jake Gyllenhaal the non gay version.

God I’m so confused now. On one hand the Chiefs have a solution to the rotating door that is their starting quarterback job, on the other hand, it’s Matt Cassel. Yeah, Matt Cassel, the guy who lead the Patriots to an 11-5 record and they STILL missed the playoffs. Maybe I should just use that hand to slap myself in the face.

In all honesty, it could’ve been worse. The Chiefs could have ended up in the media frenzy revolving around where Mike Vick is heading to now that his days as a full time dog fighter (part time football player) is officially coming to an end soon. Yet, the main lingering thought I have in my mind is that Tyler Thigpen didn’t really seem that much worse than Matt Cassel. Sure Cassel had decent stats but did he catch a touchdown pass? I think not!

Who needs wins when your quarterback can do that? Okay, Kansas City does, but that’s beside the point.

Matty Ice 0.5 also had Randy Moss and Wes Welker. We have Dwayne Bowe, an aging Tony Gonzo, and if we’re lucky, a piece of toast to throw to. Who’s the other receiver on the Pats? Jabbar Gaffney? Yeah, Kansas City would kill for a Jabbar Gaffney, it’s that pathetic.

Upgrading from Thigpen to Cassel is like putting a hotel on Baltic Avenue when you’re playing Monopoly: it looks like a sound investment, but in reality, you’re stuck with a hotel in Baltic Avenue while the guy who struck the deal to you gets to keep his cushy palace on the Boardwalk. I’m officially changing Cassel’s nickname from Matty Ice 0.5 to Baltic Avenue.

So all in all, I can’t really say I feel anything about this trade. It’s kind of like watching Benjamin Button. Everyone says it’s a good thing, but after you sit down and think about it, you realize you just wasted your time on that. I have a feeling it’s going to be like that next year when Baltic Avenue helps us squeak into the playoffs with an 8-8 season at best, and then we get obliterated by the Colts. Now I know how it’s like to be a Chargers fan: wrapped in complacency.