Fantasy Football Is Stupid

My celly has been blowing up more than usual recently. Since more often than not I hear Marky Mark's I Need Money, that can only mean one person is calling - my bookie. And since it's my bookie calling so frequently, that can only mean one thing - football season.

Now, I loves me some me. And by me, I mean football. Weekends in the fall are some of the most glorious times in the Shitty Captain's life. Because of football. And Percocets.

I love football so much that I want to make out with it.
But only the cheerleader part. And maybe Tom Brady.

There's been this ever-growing fad over the past half-decade or so, though, that has been feeding off of my love like a voracious parasite. This tapeworm is Fantasy Football.

Seriously, it's like one of the stupidest things ever invented. If ever there were something that could make Armchair General Managers think they know about sports when they don't, fantasy football is it.

To wit: I know this guy, we'll call him Canary, for lack of a better term. All through college this guy never watched a lick of sports. Spouting pretentious metaphysical bullshit while trying to be the coolest guy you know (and failing miserably) was more his style. Suddenly, though, after he graduates, he becomes a self-described football guru. He "knows" which college star will best be suited for the Steelers 3-4 Defense. He "knows" which team will take the AFC South this year. He even started up a shitty website to share his gridiron thoughts with the world. All this because he started playing fantasy football and it gave him this odd false sense of thinking he knows what he's talking about.

A few weeks ago I got to spend a lovely afternoon manhandling the libido of a lady from the neighborhood whose husband was participating in not one, but three drafts that day. He'd been laboring for weeks over reports and "professional" analysis and failed to remember that his wife had one of those things called a vagina.

Thinking all her lonely-ladyparts problems solved once the draft happened, it seems she flipped a switch when her man lamented (with little contrition, mind you) about all the time over the next four-plus months he would have to dedicate to stat-keeping and deciding who his starters would be before heading out the door for the next 18 hours.

We ran into each other in the pharmacy department of the local supermarket - she was looking for migraine relief and I needed Robitussin for the party I was hosting later that evening. I picked up a bottle of Excedrin she dropped and as I handed it back she asked rather spontaneously if I played fantasy football. "Never in my life have I ever cavorted with that particular beast," I replied. After that, she instructed me to follow her home.

We've got a standing date for the next 17 Tuesdays. That's the night her husband, head of the stats committee of two of his leagues, meets to divvy up last week's points among the players. So maybe Fantasy Football isn't all that bad.

Corhole Is Stupid

Yeah, I said it. Cornhole is stupid.

And guess what? I live in on the campus of a major university.

The last time I threw a bean bag at something, I was trying to make a Tic-Tac-Toe. Not only that, but I was trying to prevent the other guy from ruining my attempts while at the same time trying to thwart his. Talk about nuanced. At least that's something to play for.

You know what else I hate? That game, I don't even know what it's called, where you throw two little balls connected by a string at a standing unit made out of PVC pipe.

Being so goddam popular, I've seen both on sale in the sports store across the street from the school's football stadium.

Now, I'm no general hater of mindless gaming to pass the time, no. But it just seems that college kids aren't really trying when it comes to dumb recreation.

We didn't have lawn darts (or yard darts, or yarts, or whatever the fuck) so we threw scissors up in the air. Sometimes at each other. That was fun. More importantly, it was innovative adaptation. Something severely lacking in the current crop of college youth.

To wit, beer pong.

Beer pong?

Double-you tee eff, son?! That is one slapdash, piece-of-crap excuse for getting drunk. Seriously, it's Quarters for retards. You can do the same thing at the county fair and win a goldfish, that's how simple it is.

Not only that, but it's also incredibly pretentious. The same people who won't drink muscatel with you at 10 in the morning because they're not, and I quote, alcoholics are the same people who get sloppy-faced wasted playin' the pong and chalk it up to the other guy's skill with a little plastic ball.

Of course, they may refuse to drink muscatel at 10 with you because you've pissed yourself but that doesn't lessen my point any at all.

All I'm saying, if you're going to get fucked up at least admit that's what you're trying to do. We had a game we liked to play fairly frequently. There was no formal title, but the rules were pretty simple: If you do a bong hit, then you drink a beer. That got you lit up quick. When we weren't playing that we had another game with different rules: If you take a drink of beer, then you do a bong hit.

There's no reason to be coy about getting your buzz on.

So back to my original point, which, up until now, I have not backed up very well (nor will I probably) - Cornhole is stupid.

...Is Stupid

I think a lot of things are stupid.

I'm also pretty vocal about exposing the inherent stupidness found in many things.

That said, one of the recurring features you will see in this blog are posts sharing with you, the reader, stupid things.

You'll know these posts by their titles.

Don't mistake this for my gimmick because this is the first post. Didn't you know that calling things "stupid" was the reason blogs were invented?

No, my gimmick is being a very horrible sea captain.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I'm a pretty bad captain all around.

When I was captain of the local softball team we lost a lot. And when I played Captain Willard in a stage version of Apocalypse Now the boat put on a few years back I was panned by the critics.

So I guess this blog title is appropriate across all aspects of my captainly life.