mr. blackandwhite

Troy Brown: Football Player

When I watch The Patriots, I always turn down the volume on the T.V. and listen to the radio broadcast with Gil Santos and Gino Cappelletti as I watch the game.

When play-by-play man extraordinaire Gil Santos would call Troy Brown's name during a game, he would regularly refer to him as 'Troy Brown: Football Player'. I have always felt that was such a great compliment to Troy and of course it is well deserved. Offense, defense, special teams, even backup quarterback, Troy did it all.

When the outcome of a game was on the line and the Patriots were in need of a big play to stay alive, on countless occasions, Troy Brown came through with that play. Like Bill Belichick said, "Nobody thought he could make the big plays. But all he did was make plays."

I have to say I have been wondering about Troy's status over the last few weeks and was kind of hoping we might see him take the field at some point this season. With his retirement now official, it's a saddening thing to know that we'll no longer get to watch one of the true greats play the game the way it was meant to be played.

Players of Troy's exceptional caliber don't come around that often. I'm glad that I was able to watch him play his entire career wearing a New England Patriots uniform. I can't even count how many times I've jumped out of my chair in jubilation after Troy made a catch, prevented a pass or ran back a punt that helped to seal another win for The Patriots.

Troy Brown: Football Player.

Oh it's really a 'Rescue Plan' not a bailout? Whew! I feel so much better now.

Guys and ladies, I know it's Friday and I know you when you come here you are probably not expecting to read about this kind of stuff, especially on a Friday, so I'll keep this short.. Just keep in mind that I wouldn't be posting about this topic if I didn't feel it's extreme importance.

Here are a couple links for you to read, watch or ignore, if you want to. Then take it from there.

An answer to the President from Ron Paul

U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur: "They want Mama to bail us out."

Forbes: Bad News For The Bailout

The very fact that the 'bailout' was re-branded as a 'Rescue Plan' should clue you in to the tactics being used.. against you.

You may also be interested to know that 700 billion amount they've come up with?

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Here are some links to let you easily look up and contact your representatives in the U.S. Congress. Contact them and tell them your thoughts. Thanks.

Find your U.S. Representative

Find your U.S. Senator

Other useful sites: Gov Track, Congress.org

THEY WORK FOR US

Ron Paul: Time is running out

Hey all, I know I don't usually delve into this kind of stuff here, so maybe that will tell you how important I think this is. Take a few minutes out of your day to read the link I posted below and then take it from there. Thanks.

Letter from Ron: Time is running out

Additional usefulness:
Write to congress, write your senators and keep track of them.

Squishie Fishies

Well from a Pats Fan perspective, that pretty much sucked yesterday, didn't it? What was I saying in the previous post about Ronnie Brown? That the Pats have had some difficulty handling him in the past? Sheesh.

The Fish did all the squishing yesterday, to the tune of after-30-points-I-stopped-paying-attention to 13. Ouch. I watched the first half of the game but when it became clear that Matt Cassel had reverted to his pre-season form and that The Pats D wasn't going to be stopping anybody wearing the color teal, I grabbed the radio and headed outside to do some yard work on the last official day of Summer '08 (sigh).

To be honest, I didn't have a good feeling about this game right from the start. The Patriots were due for a clunker and with Brady lost for the season, we all knew this kind of game had to happen eventually. Have you ever noticed that more often than not, these types of games seem to come against The Dolphins? I guess the positive thing to say is, The Pats have gotten their annual 'bad game' out of the way, now they need take what they can use from it and move on.

When the schedule first came out, I was not very pleased about the bye week coming so early in the year, but given the situation, I think the bye week ends up coming at a good time as it will give the team a chance to catch it's breath and regroup before heading into the meat of the schedule. Plus, my family is planning to go apple picking next weekend. The bye week means I won't have to worry about missing the game.

Despite the high suck-factor of yesterday's loss, The Brady-less Pats have handled a pretty huge obstacle to open the season and are still in a good position as far as the early standings go.

The Patriots will go into the bye week at 2-1 overall and 1-1 in the Division. We all know it's going to be a lot tighter race to win the AFC East this season and if you look around the AFC, many of the predicted contenders are struggling as well. The Colts are 1-2, The Chargers are 0-2, the Steelers are now 2-1.. Buffalo, Tennesee and Denver are all sitting pretty at 3-0..

It's early. Teams that came out of the gate fast will soon find other teams starting to creep up on them in the standings.

The Patriots will get a week to recover from yesterday's squishing at the hands (fins?) of the Fish, then we will begin to learn what this year's Patriots team is truly made of once they step back onto the field in October.

GO PATS

Squish Request

Hey so what's up everybody? Happy Reward Friday once again!

This morning I walked into Dunkins to get my usual Reward Friday breakfast and before I could say anything, the person behind the counter smiled at me and said, 'Sausage, egg and cheese on an onion bagel?'

I guess they know me there. Ha.

So this weekend The Pats will try to squish those fish at The Razor in Foxborough. I know everybody is saying how bad the Dolphins are and their record doesn't lie, but I still don't want to overlook them. The Dolphins are a team that is desperate for a win and I am sure they would love to get it on The Patriots home turf and put an end to their regular season win streak at the same time.

This is not the Dolphins team that went 1-15 last year. Miami has made some improvements this off-season, particularly on offense. Pennington is an efficient QB, they've beefed up their O-Line and they have two good running backs in Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams. The Pats have usually done a good job containing Williams but I seem to recall Ronnie Brown giving the The Pats' D some trouble. Feel free to thrash me thoroughly in the comments if I am wrong there..

The Pats got lucky this year and don't have to play on the broiling pan that is Dolphin Stadium in Miami in September. Of course the Fish get out of the Foxborough ice box in December as well so the respective weather advantage is basically a wash now.. Seems like it used to be every year, The Pats would have to endure the withering heat and humidity in Miami during the Fall and the Fish would have to come up here and freeze their asses off and let us throw snow at them in the Winter. Did the teams come to some kind of secret nice weather scheduling agreement? Hmmmm. Somebody get Arlen Specter on the phone.

Then again, don't.

Though they have dropped the first two games, I don't think the Fish will go 1-15 again this year, but hopefully The Patriots will make Joey Porter wait at least one more week to get that first win..

Squish the Fish

GO PATS

Ka-Ching!

Dear Bank of America,

Fantastic news! As a taxpaying U.S. citizen, I recently had a major windfall occur and I became a part owner of not only an investment firm, a bank AND a mortgage company, but now I'm a part owner of an insurance company as well! Isn't that awesome??

Ok, enough about me, here's where it all comes together: I couldn't help but notice that you're in a buying mood lately, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in my newly acquired shares of these fine financial institutions as well. I'll trade ya what I've got in Fannie, Freddie and AIG straight up for the remaining balance of my mortgage. Heck, I'll throw in what I've got in Bear Stearns too.

What do you say?? It's a win win win for everybody all around! Let's make a deal baby!!

Just between you and me, I gotta tell ya, I think the poop's well on it's way towards the fan and I'd really like to get rid of this thing before something really bad happens, ya know? hahaha ;-)

Ok, thanks BOA!

Chat ya soon!

Tip 'o the ol' cap to The Rays..

I've gotta tip my hat to the Tampa Bay Rays after last night's victory over the Red Sox. At the start of this final three game series against the Rays, The Sox were looking like they were poised to take control of the A.L. East for permanent with a 13-5 win, but Tampa Bay slammed the door in games two and three, putting the Sox two games back as they head up to Toronto.

I actually think it's pretty awesome how well the Rays have done this season and if it were not for the fact that they are in direct competition with the Sox in the A.L. East, I'd be fully rooting for them as my backup team this year. The Rays have been the A.L. East doormats for so long, it is nice to see them turn it around this season, even if it does impact The Red Sox.

With their magic number for the Wildcard currently at 4, barring some kind of disaster, the Red Sox look like they will be playing baseball in October as well, otherwise I'd be a bit less congratulatory and a little more agitated regarding the Rays situation. Obviously I'd prefer to see The Sox win the East and there's still a chance it can happen, but making the playoffs is the first priority.

So nice job Tampa Bay. Enjoy the playoffs, (just not as much as the Red Sox hopefully will. Heh.)

Quick recap of the last few days from Friday up till now which is Wed.

Hey whats up everybody? Happy hump day.

Quick recap of the last few days:

The Supersuckers show last Friday = Awesome.
Driving home from Boston after the Supersuckers show with toothpicks holding my eyes open sometime prior to dawn on Saturday morning = Not awesome.

Not having to go to work after the Supersuckers show last Friday = Awesome.
Being pretty much total junk all day on Saturday due lack of sleep and seriously wondering if I'm getting too old to go to these rock shows = Not awesome.

The Patriots beating the Jets in Jersey on Sunday after football 'fans' in nyc celebrated Tom Brady's season ending knee injury and crowned themselves the presumptive AFC East Champs the week before = Awesome.

The Red Sox tying The Rayz for first place in the A.L. East on Monday = Awesome.
The Red Sox falling a game back again after The Rayz walk off win last night = Not awesome.

Finding lolinator.com earlier today = Awesome. (I like to end the post on an 'Awesome')

(H/T to the The DSC Drop for the lolinator link. Also, my drop.io is feeling lonely..)

HA!

Friday, Friday, Fri-Day... yay!

What's up you all? Happy Friday. Reward Friday, as we like to say around here.

I've got some good plans for this evening as I'll be heading into Boston (ok, technically Allston, but, close enough) to see The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World, The Supersuckers, at Harpers Ferry. Should be happy times.

The plan is to head into towne after work, grab a bite and some liquid refreshment at T's Pub and then.. well I don't know what I'll do, but it'll involve killing time till the show starts around 8:30 or 9 PM. I actually brought a book to read, but I don't know how much reading I'll be able to do in T's Pub on a Friday night... I'll probably wind up watching the Sox / Jays game.

When showtime comes around I'll walk down to Harpers Ferry and then participate in the rock and roll experience that will be taking place within. I've got my black t-shirt on today, so I'm prepped and good to go..

If you've got some bandwidth to spare and some extra cycles to kill, get some traction on and head over to check out today's edition of The Great Debates over at MVN's NFL Outsiders site. Today's burning question: Is 2008 a lost season for The Patriots?

The story features some different opinions on this topic from around Patriots Nation and in an amazing display of gutsy courage by the folks at MVN, I was asked to lend my opinion to the post as well. Amazing!

Have a good weekend. Rock. Stay out of trouble. GO PATS

High Fives all around for Typepad

Before this gets too far in the past I want to send a sincere thank-you out to Ginevra and the folks at Typepad who helped me out tremendously with the problem I was trying to solve involving Typepad typelists and getting them to display only on the front page of the site and not on posts, archives or categories.

In order to make the change it was necessary to convert my site design to an advanced template and make some changes to the html guts of site. Ginevra hooked me up so that I could experiment with the necessary changes and make sure that they would work the way I needed them to.

Thankfully the solution to the problem was relatively easy and the issue has been solved. Thanks again to Ginevra and Typepad tech support for their assistance!

For anybody on Typepad who is running into this situation, here's what I did:

- Upgrade your site design to an advanced template. (Unfortunately, according to Typepad, there's no way around this at the moment.)

- In the advanced template, edit the sidebar template. Don't make any changes, just select all, copy, and close out of the sidebar template.

- Create a new sidebar index template, name it something appropriate. (I called mine sidebar_no_ads.inc)

- Paste in the info you copied from the original sidebar template.

- Find the Typelist that you don't want to be displayed site-wide and simply comment it out like so:
(you may need to do a little comparing between your actual website and the html code to locate it in the code):

<!--#include virtual="/lists/phenotype/module.inc" list_id="1234"-->

becomes:

<!--include virtual="/lists/phenotype/module.inc" list_id="1234"-->

- Save the updated sidebar template.

- Now simply edit the archive templates that you don't want the particular typelist to appear in (in my case, advertising links) and replace the 'sidebar.inc' with your new sidebar template, like so:

<!--#include virtual="/<$MTBlogDirname$>/sidebar.inc"-->

gets replaced by:

<!--#include virtual="/<$MTBlogDirname$>/sidebar_no_ads.inc"-->

- Save each template and when you're finished republish your site. Done. No more site-wide typelists. In my case, no more site-wide ads. Yay!

Hopefully this info proves helpful to anyone out there running into this dilemma (and hopefully this gets me off of Google's naughty list and back on to the nice list, which is where I belong. Because I am nice. Mostly.)

Stomp request

I was reading the Projo Pats blog and this story about the reaction of... well I hesitate to call them football fans.. um, assholes? Yeah, that fits.. the reaction of these nyc assholes to Tom Brady's injury by cheering and gloating really made me angry. But then I remembered that these are the same assholes that cheered when their own QB went down with an injury last season..

Hopefully there will be a few copies of the new york rags left lying around the Patriots locker room this week with the pages left conspicuously open to the story headlined, 'Yahoo! Brady Out For Year', helping to incite some extreme stompage by the Patriots D come Sunday at 4:15..

Next time Tom goes to don that ny yankees ball-cap, I wonder if he'll think about the general fan-base it represents and change his mind.. one can only hope.

GO PATS

Note to self: Would you click on some Brittney Spears tabloid trash story? No. Don't show them that these are the kinds of stories you want to read and think before you click..

Brady to IR.

It's the worst: Tom Brady will require knee surgery and is headed to Injured Reserve (IR) for the remainder of the season. What an absolute, tremendous waste, for Brady, for The Patriots and for not only Patriots fans but fans of the NFL in general. The best QB in the league is done after playing two series in game one. Fuck. 

At this point all I can do is send positive vibes out to Tom on his recovery. Hopefully he will return from the injury and we will see him take the field next season, but the bottom line is, I hope he will be ok. Get better Tom.

As far as Patriots Nation goes, time to rally behind Matt Cassle. I'll need to start remembering how to spell his name correctly without having to continually look it up..

GO PATS

Note to self: Its Cassel, not Cassle, you dim-wit. Think cassete, not castle..

Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst

As Angela said, for the second year in a row now, a Patriots season-opening win is overshadowed by terrible badness. The true status of Tom Brady's knee is still unknown as of yet but everybody in the world is saying it's a torn ACL and he's done for the year. That fully sucks giant rhino ass for us loyal Patriots fans. (Master of the Obvious, that's me.)

The best case scenario is that the MSM is wrong (that's never happened before right?) and its not a season ending injury for Tom (hey, I can hope). At the very least though, I think we can safely assume he'll be out for the foreseeable future. The Pats are bringing in some veteran free-agent QB's including former Bucs starting QB, Chris Simms, today. Simms showed a lot of potential before he got hurt (ruptured spleen) a few seasons back.

If Brady is out (arg), whoever his long-term replacement is will still have an excellent group of receivers, a solid o-line and a very good running game to work with. A lot of comparisons are being drawn to the 2001 season when Brady stepped in for Bledsoe. I think that the 2008 Patriots are a much better team offensively than the '01 team was, so Brady's eventual replacement will have plenty of weapons to work with. His job will be to take advantage of the personnel around him, manage the game and keep the screw-ups to a minimum.

Defensively, not much changes, except that the D will probably not get a lot of games with 21 + point cushions to work with. The D is going to need to step up and hold opposing offenses down. There will assuredly be several more games than expected this season where we will count on the D to win it for us. Keeping K.C. off of the scoreboard with one minute to play and first and goal at the 5 yard line was a good starting point yesterday.

The mantra of this era's Patriots Dynasty has always been 'team'. With Brady out The Pats will once again need to fully embrace that ideal. They get to legitimately have that 'nobody thinks we can do it' chip back on their shoulder as well.

One morsel of good news is that looking around the league, The Colts and Chargers both lost yesterday. With the exception of Pittsburgh, a lot of the teams people were picking to be at the top had bad days yesterday. Yes, it's only week one, but week one counts and I'm already thinking about playoff seeding.

GO PATS

We are [insert the 'F' word here]ed.

I tried to come up with a nice way to say it but let's be honest with each other here friends, Brady is hurt and Patriot Nation, we are quite possibly totally fucked. I'm reading all kinds of rumors flying around the web about the severity of the injury to #12's knee and it's making my stomach churn. 

I'm trying to remain calm, ignore the rumors and wait for the injury report but that won't appear for several days. In the meantime, there's nothing to do but reach for the Tums. (I may appear calm on the outside, but inside I'm screaming.)

Meanwhile, yes, The Patriots hung on for the win today, which is great. I am happy the team got the win of course. One down, 15 to go. Matt Cassel was not exactly inspiring but he got the job done. Kudos to the Patriots defense for preventing K.C. from tying the game when they had 1st and goal at the Pats' 5 yard line.. I'm not going to go through all the in's and outs. It was far from perfect but a win is a win.

Once the Pats game ended I watched the closing minutes of the NYJ / Miami game. I was rooting for Pennington and the Fish. They had a shot, but their comeback fell short in the end. Blah. I would like to rag on Farve at this point in the post but I don't have the energy. I'm too busy worrying about my own team's quarterback.

GO PATS

In contempt of Jimmy Page

Hey what's up everybody! It's Friday. Yay. I don't really have anything big to post about but I'm trying to keep the site updated more often now so here's a few miscellaneous tidbits..

I have not mentioned this but over the last few weeks I have been working to drop some weight. I noticed that I had been steadily gaining weight, a pound here, a pound there.. no big deal, right? Then the next thing I know, I've put on 15 pounds! Ack! Not acceptable (note: I have somewhat of a personal weight obsession). So when Patriots training camp was getting started I decided to use the Patriots' preparation for the regular season as a kind of motivator to get myself in shape along with the team. I dubbed it The Training Camp Challenge and my goal was to lose as much as I could before the first regular season game, which is this weekend.

I lost approximately 6 pounds, which, honestly, is kind of disappointing, as I was hoping to do better, but my Wife pointed out that that is a pound a week, which really is not that bad.. So even though I'm not happy with where I am, I feel like I did ok.

I'm going to continue my challenge into the regular season. My new goal: 8 wins, 8 pounds. I want to drop a minimum of 8 pounds by the time the Pats get to 8 wins. I'm hoping The Pats make me work for it and go 8-0.

--

I recently found several old friends from college and high school that I have not heard from in many years on Facebook and MySpace. That is pretty cool. I was pretty tight with some of these folks back in the day but when school ended we just kind of fell out of touch. That's how it goes.

When I first signed up on Facebook / MySpace, I was kinda lost. I really had no idea how it worked or what the whole point of either site was but I have to say, it has been a great way to find people. I am psyched to have re-connected with some old friends.

I was thinking of adding this wacky site to my Facebook and MySpace pages so my friends could read it, but I'm still kinda paranoid about the whole 'someone from work accidentally stumbling across my blawg' thing.. So I don't know. I'm thinking about it.. Any thoughts?

--

Last night during garage band rehearsal we were horsing around on some song and I was informed by one of the band members that I was 'in contempt of Jimmy Page'. Genius. I found this comment to be hilarious and being the wise-ass that I am, immediately launched into a really bad and poorly played Led Zep medley (sans Stairway, of course).

I may have to try and wedge some Clutch into our repertoire because I've been listening to 'Walking In the Great Shining Path of Monster Trucks' like, non f-ing stop. I can't stop myself.

--

At this point I have nothing else to add. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Birth: Check, School: Check..

My kids' first day of school was today. They are in first grade and have officially begun their indoctrination.. I can't believe they're in grade school now. I hope they kick the real world's ass. I have complete and total confidence in their abilities to do so.. :-)

Got my tix to the Supersuckers show in the mail yesterday. I am psyched. Looks like I may be going to see The Reverent Horton Heat in November as well. The bass player in the garage band is friends of somebody's friend and apparently we may be on the guest list. Sweet. I'm going to try and get out and see a few local bands in Worcester as well (Gold Star Campaign, The Howl..) over the next few weeks. I'm figuring I can rock my face off in a dim setting outside of the home about once a month this Fall.. should be happy times. Wa-we-wa-woo..

(Hey, don't forget about my drop.io. Drop me something, dammit!)

I need to get back into the habit of wearing pants.

Fall is here. That means pants are in, shorts are out.

Ok I know, technically, it's still Summah, but as far as I'm concerned, the day after Labor Day = Fall. The Patriots start next week (yay!), the kids start school tomorrow (1st grade, ack!).. The Sox Magic Number starts getting really small (currently 23).. the crab-grass is withering (yay!).. and there's that noticeable Fall-like change in the air. You can feel it. It's here. It's Fall. Dammit.

I have to say I'm not really all that pleased to see Fall arrive. It used to be my favorite season, but now, not so much. I just enjoy Summer so much, I hate seeing it end, and I hate the fact that Winter is looming over the horizon.

Plus there's the whole emotional aspect of it, seeing the kids off to school, watching the leaves change and fall off of the trees.. it reminds me how fast my life is moving.. I swear it feels like it was just April and Spring was starting. I want it to slow down.

So yeah, you can see it's kind of easy for me to get a little gloomy this time of year, but this year I'm going to try and enjoy all the good stuff about Fall to the max and have as much Fall Fun as possible this season.

There are things to look forward to, The Patriots of course, apple picking (which also means apple crisp), the beauty of the leaves changing colors here in New England, some nice Fall fishing, super-nice weather, the B's and C's starting their seasons, hopefully some October baseball featuring the Red Sox..

(The Patriots could provide a nice boost to the ol' 'Fall is here' attitude with a season-opening W over K.C. on Sunday..)

My kids are getting to the age where the activities start ramping up, so it's going to be a busy time too. I'm sure the season is going to fly by and the next thing I know it'll be January. I'll have to make sure to stop and look around once in a while (so I don't miss it).