The Extra Point

Idiotarod 2007

This video is the third part of a six part short about the Idiotarod that some friends of mine made. For those who don't know, the Idiotaord is a shopping cart race through New York City. Our team, the Guitar Heroes, was awarded Best in Show. The highest award. $1000 in prize money. And a golden 40 oz. We're not shown much in this clip, but here you really see the scope of the madness that is the Idiotarod. We were the best there, and we fuckin rocked! We were also awarded Best Sabotage, after the NYPD, which makes it three years running we've won Best Sabotage. That's what I've done with Notre Dame education, I've achieved excellence in shopping cart races. Oh, and I had an awesome wig.

The last two years, our team was "Boy Scout Troop 666". We would go for the Sabotage Award, which involved throwing banana peels and marbles under other teams, slashing their ropes so they couldn't pull their cart, using a chain and bike lock to lock up other carts, and somehow even finishing first last year (although no one could figure out how we did it.)

In so doing, we naturally acquired some enemies, the biggest being team C.O.B.R.A. They've got about 50 guys on their team, and they use the whole GiJoe thing. They thrive on misinformation, trickery, and propaganda. In 2005, we split Best Sabotage with Cobra, who made up fake fliers claiming that the checkpoint had moved. In 2006, Cobra could have won Sabotage too, as they made a fake checkpoint that fooled almost everyone. But they were instead given Best in Show, and given the stewardship of running this year's race. This year, we won Best in Show, and Best Sabotage (3rd year in a row). Look at what Cobra, our arch-nemesis had to say about us, on their Awards page. Thanks for running the race Cobra, but we got you!

AWARDS

BEST-IN-SHOW: Guitar Heroes.
Number Six's Commentary: The Guitar Heroes hit a lot of good points. They tapped into a particular zeitgeist at its height. Great costumes, great theme, great spirit. Many, many judges commented on how spirited they were (AND friendly). Their cart actually played Guitar Hero. They were also aggressive in lobbying for themselves in the final moments. And one agreed to take off his pants. It is amazing how far you can get in the world by offering to take off your pants.

BEST SABOTAGE: NYPD.
Number Six's Commentary: The NYPD out did themselves this year. While it appeared they forgot to enter an actual cart, they had a massive team with hundreds of members. They used organization and technology. I mean, they had HELICOPTERS! That is pretty bad ass. The horses were pretty cool too. They also managed to arrive at the real starting line before C.O.B.R.A. even got there. While the NYPD didn't manage to sabotage the entire race, they were amazingly successful at shutting down the original afterparty. Luckily for us, Lars at The Creek and The Cave came to the rescue.

Also a Special Sabotage Award to Guitar Heroes for being C.O.B.R.A.'s arch nemesis Troop 666 and not having C.O.B.R.A. discover that until after the Award Ceremony. Yes, C.O.B.R.A. gave Troop 666 a thousand dollars. We salute you Troop 666. Call the NYPD about sharing the prize money. Ask for Sergeant Douchebag. Just keep demanding your fair share if at first they say no.

F' Da Eagles

NSFW, or for public broadcasting.

Why does FOX show so many crowd shots during a game? It's like their desperate to show us how the fans are feeling. Who cares? Sitting at home, I don't need to be reminded that the fans are having a great time. I want to know what's happening in the game. Give me some hard analysis, tell me why a play worked or didn't. Football is probably the most complicated sport out there, and as I used to show on my video breakdowns, there is a wealth of information to analyze on every play. 22 people performing highly skilled athletic tasks in a synchronous movemeant that requires exquisite timing, body control, mental acuity and strenght of will. I've heard that there's a chess match going on out there so many times, but I never see any of this strategy analyzed unless there is a touchdown scored. Give me analysis, don't give me shots of some drunken bozos in the stands, it just makes me envious that I'm not there being a drunken bozo myself. During one of the BCS games, Fox even cut out in the middle of a play to a crowd shot. Who cares? Give me some cheerleading shots coming out of commercial every once in a while, and I'll be happy. In fact, if you could give me a shot of a cheerleader breaking down the plays, you'd have gold on your hands. Hmmm....

And how the hell did the camerman or the director not see the writing on her shirt. Everything that's broadcasted goes by the eyes of multiple people. That shot lasts for a good 5 seconds, but I guess everyone was distracted. Ohhh! Pretty girl!

Not that I really care, I think there's too much censorship out there as it is, and I don't like the Eagles that much either.

Sour Grapes never tasted so good

Troy Smith, Heisman winner. 4/14 passing for 35 yards, 0 tds, 1 int, 10 rushing attempts for -27 yards, 1 fumble lost, 5 sacks.

If you didn't see the game it just looks like there are numbers missing, like there should be more digits in there. If you watched it all, you would know that Smith was in negative yardage for most of the game. You also never got enough of those sour candy worms during childhood.

As a Notre Dame fan, I couldnt have hoped for much better, as I have no love for either team. College Football can be such a bitter world, it seems you can only root for teams that have never slighted yours, and everyone's done something to ND. The only teams I feel like I can pull for aside from the Irish are the likes of Boise State and Rutgers, teams without a history. So if you are a vindictive College Footbal fan, or live anywhere near Ohio and have had to deal with obnoxious OSU fans, you got exactly what you wanted last night. If you have moved past your bitterness or just wanted to see a good game, man, what a debacle.

If you were bitter that Brady didn't win the Heisman, you certainly got your dose of Schadenfreude. So all those media members who voted Brady Quinn 3rd in the Heisman race are now forced to doubt everything they so pompously proclaimed. It seems to happen every year now, doesn't it? 82 yards of offense! Can you imagine the media outcry if this had happened to Notre Dame? We were an upset away from exactly that happening. If USC doesn't lose to UCLA, ND likely would have played Florida in the Sugar Bowl, and we would have lost even more badly to Florida than we did to LSU. At least we made a half of it.

If UCLA doesn't upset USC, Florida never even gets into this game.

As I've said before, back when I used to do video posts, pressure up the middle and bad O-Line play will make any QB look bad. Take ND's O-Line and put them in OSU uniforms. Smith wouldn't have a had a chance to win the Heisman.

The more I watch College Football, the more I feel like I don't know anything at all about any team until I see these teams play each other. In a timely fashion, not two months after the season. Until you see teams play each other, how can you ever decide who is better, and who should be ranked higher?

The entire College Football system is ridiculous. Even a plus-1 system wouldn't be good enough. Who would Florida play in the next game if there was a plus 1 game? USC, Wisconsin, LSU, or Boise State? You can make a case for any team, and we still wouldn't know who the best team was.

Also, it seems that we can't watch a game now or highlight program without hearing about a record breaking performance. Now that we've entered the era of a 12 game regular season, none of these records mean anything. So what if Colt Brennan threw for 55 td's, he had an extra game to do it. I don't want to hear about Charlie's 10 game win total. This team didn't perform any better than last year's team. With their 12th game, ND added Army to their schedule. Without that game, the Irish would be 9-3 again this year, and that banner in the Gug should still be hanging up, because that's still not good enough.

ND names new Defensive Coordinator

In the wake of the Sugar Bowl rout, Charlie Weis saw the need for a change on the defensive side of the ball. In a recent press conference that only I saw, Charlie announced a new Defensive staff for the Irish. It appears that they have a strong New Jersey connection. The staff will be:

Jon Bon Jovi: Defensive Co-ordinator
Richie Sambora: Linebackers coach
David Bryan: Defensive Line coach
Tico Torres: Defensive Backs coach
Alec John Such: Defensive recruiting coordinator

Tom Zbikowski, who was considering returning for a 5th year, was quoted as saying, "Well I was gonna come back for one more year, you know, lead the team, give the younger guys some leadership, but now I'm not so sure. It'll just be another year of Jersey sarcasm and wisecracks. And if I have to hear "Livin' on a prayer" one more time, I think I'm gonna shoot myself."