"Game 7, Baby! GAME 7!" Open Thread

Thank you, Zaza:

 


While you're here, let me know your best game 7 memory, across any sport. rob, you're not allowed to participate.

Nathan Knight and the Pips 2019 Tour

We're about 10 days away from the tip of William & Mary's 2019-20 men's basketball season. At the end of the 2019 CAA Tournament, most observers tapped the Tribe as one of the top two teams headed into this year. W&M stood its best chance in a long time to make that elusive appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

We know what happened next. And no, we're not over it, and we won't be any time soon. Hell, Marls won't even return the school's calls wondering why he's giving all of his hard-won money to St. John's

Regardless of how we feel, though, life goes on. While I will long remain a critic of the current W&M athletic administration (just wait until I get a chance to post a review of the new strategic plan), I can't in good conscience take my feelings out on the kids that wear the green and gold.

Those kids and their new coach, Dane Fischer, play at High Point a week from Tuesday. At some point, we'll offer a half-assed preview of the season, one in which we'll be lucky to win ten games. For now, though, we've dropped into this space to form a posse to attend the Tribe's second game.

On Friday, November 8, W&M comes to D.C. to face American University at Bender Arena. The Teej and I have visited Bender to see the Eagles play in a Patriot League playoff game. It's a tiny little bandbox, but it's fun. Holler at me in the comments if you'd like to go see Nathan Knight (who finds his name on multiple lists of the nation's top players) and what passes for a supporting cast get after it. Counting on you, in particular, Teej.

NBA Action.......It's Fantastic (Especially When You Stay Up Late With Drugs And Don't Have to Go to Work)

We are now one week beyond my spine surgery. My scruff is turning into a real mess, I can't drive, my neck brace is annoying and I have a large bandage slowly falling off my neck. But on the positive side, nobody is nagging me to shower, folks buy food I want, the opioid-induced constipation has passed, and it's a very good stretch of the sports calendar for a fan on the mend. And I am stocked with licit and illicit narcotics to make the pain and ennui more tolerable.



A key component of passing the time has been watching the first two nights of the NBA season. With many stars on the move and a lot of high-profile rookies entering the league, I am excited to dig in and attempt to forget the dumpster fire that is the New York Jets.

One of my favorite things about the NBA is analyzing box scores. I did it religiously as a kid, when my mom would come home from work at 530 PM and hand me the sports section so I could learn what happened the previous night. While I have been able to watch chunks of five different NBA games over two nights, I have dug into all the box scores. I thought I would share my favorite five findings from the first two nights:

1) Andrew Wiggins gonna Andrew Wiggins.  You may have noticed Wiggins scored 21 points last night. Sounds impressive right? Like he's finally becoming the second T-Wolves threat that should keep folks from double-teaming KAT? Um, not really. It took Wiggins 27 shots to get there. And he had 0 assists. In 36 minutes. With KAT as a teammate. That is piss poor. I leave you with an eloquently titled YouTube video that sums up how T-Wolves fans feel about Wiggins.



2) PJ Washington has no fucks to give - award him the ROY now. My oldest kid somehow became a Kentucky Wildcats fan a couple years ago. So we watched their basketball team a lot last season. Tyler Herro was a beast for that team, but PJ Washington was the soul of the team. He has the game of an old-school power forward, but also with explosive leaping and nice mid-range jumper. He came out of the gates in a big way in his first game last night. The rookie PF who was the 12th pick overall for the Hornets started and lit up the Bulls with 27 points in 38 minutes. While he only had 4 rebounds, he did go 7 of 11 from the 3-pt line. New school PF stats. Bonus tidbit - the official favorite backup PG of G:TB had himself a game. Devonte' Graham is the backup PG for the Hornets. He put up 23 pts and 8 assists in 27 minutes and had a +18 rating. He backed up the egregiously overpaid Terry Rozier, who put up 7 pts and 6 assists in 30 minutes.



3. CTC for Jake Layman. My wife is a Maryland alumna. We pay attention to them. We went to an unremarkable Maryland-Marshall game in December 2015. We saw what was a pretty stacked Terps squad (Diamond Stone, Melo Trimble, Robert Carter). They also had a glue guy at SF named Jake Layman. Jake averaged b/w 11-13 ppg during his sophomore/junior/senior years. He ended up turning his "honorable mention All Big Ten" credentials as a senior into a second round pick. He took advantage of the opportunities he got with the Blazers early on in his career to get himself a nice little paycheck. Before this year (his fourth as a pro), he signed a 3-year, $11.5 MM contract with the T-Wolves. In his first game, he played 23 minutes off the bench and scored 10 pts, going 2 for 4 from behind the arc. Keep cutting them checks for Jake, who may have parlayed one strong quarter (see below) and a decent outside shot into a longer career than anybody expected.



4. Knicks have not lost that dumpster fire feeling. I'm going to give you two quintets of Knicks. Quintet 1: Marcus Morris, RJ Barrett, Bobby Portis, Julius Randle, Alonzo Trier. Quintet 2: Taj Gibson, Kevin Knox, Dennis Smith Jr., Elfrid Payton, Wayne Ellington. I want you to guess which group started the first game. I then want you to guess which quintet is bettter. I'll spare you the tension - the former quintet started their first game. And I bet the latter is the better group. The Knicks will suck ass this year, with an overabundance of redundant frontcourt veterans. The front office will feel compelled to play them, at the expense of Dennis Smith Jr and Kevin Knox. This franchise is awful. I rescinded my fandom over a decade ago, but was hoping they'd be remotely watchable this year. They won't be. And I'm further conflicted b/c MSG shares are a compelling value around the $269 level. The sum-of-the-parts value is high for that company and activist investors may be able to force that value unlock. If Dolan sells, I may unrescind the fandom that I rescinded. Lots of rescission potential on the horizon. Does that make sense? If not, give me a pass b/c Tramadol. Here is crazy Rappaport and Jim Norton doing a Mystery Science Theatre 3000-esque takedown of a video of Dolan's band.



5. Y'all Vleet Vleet Vleet Vleet. Freddy VanVleet had himself a ball game in the opener. With Kawhi gone and Kyle Lowry at the end of his peak, there are shots that need to be taken by the Raptors. Pascal Siakam should take another leap, but Freddy V has a big opportunity to do so as well. He opened the year with 34 points and 7 assists against the Pelicans. He only started 28 games last year, averaging 11 ppg, but we could see a huge uptick this year. He's only 25 y/o, so plenty of room for advancement. Will be fun to watch.

More fun games on tap for tonight: Bucks @ Rockets and Clippers @ Warriors. As your attorney, I advise you to get into an appropriate state of mind and enjoy.

Posting the Hits

Have we posted this before? I don't know, nor do I care to research whether we have or not. It's extremely #onbrand, and quite enjoyable.

 

From the This Doesn't Suck Files

I promise a full post with the highlights of my trip to Spain, as soon as the jet lag passes (and upcoming trips to Minneapolis and Chicago over the next six days are done). Until then, an amuse-yeux of sorts to whet your appetite:

This photo of the Alhambra was taken at sunset from a little cafe called El Balcon de San Nicolas in the Albaicin district of Grenada. My man Marls has been to this very spot, if I'm not mistaken. If anything, the picture understates how stunning the view is. Funny story about the Alhambra...to follow.

Ode to a Saloon

Once upon a time, there was a watering hole. A dive, a hole in the wall, a juke joint, a neighborhood bar. "Saloon" probably best describes it.

It was and is called The Cowboy Cafe.

Founded in 1991, this Arlington, VA tavern has hosted more meals ‘twixt gheorghies than any place on the planet save William and Mary dining halls the Caf and the Marketplace… and maybe the College Delly. “The Boy,” as those of us into brevity took to calling it sometime during Clinton’s first term, has played stucco-walled host to many a tasty meal, all too many a cold lager, and countless hours of revelry and camaraderie since we first ambled across it.

Howdy, Stranger

Rob and I moved into Bigger Field at Little Falls Stadium in December of 1993. (Living quarters named for the deluxe wiffle ballpark it became for 18 glorious months.) A trove of Tribe alums had already set up camp in rented domiciles throughout the Lee-Harrison-Westover-Washington neighborhoods of North Arlington. Among the first orders of business when moving into any place, of course, is scoping out local dives in staggering distance. The Cowboy Cafe was already on some of our chums’ radar, so the Squirreler and I checked it out.

Tuesdays are half-priced burger nights. And damn good. And they had relatively cheap swill flowing from the tap. The trap was set from the get-go.

After a year and a half of bachelor parties and keg croquet tournaments, dozens of hours of after-work wiffle, and way too much Beavis and Butt-Head, Rob and I were unceremoniously tossed from that little rambler. After throwing the epic “Evict-nic” as a last gasp bash, we moved to Falls Church. Our trips to Cowboy waned severely. It's a sad song, I know!

Let’s Ride

By the grace of Burger Yahweh, and not terribly coincidentally, once I got hitched (Part I) in ’97, she and I moved into another little rambler three blocks from the old place. The proximity of The Boy meant Tuesdays were now re-committed. Much to my new bride’s delight.

I missed three Tuesdays in 1998. Nothing to be proud of, Russ. Three Tuesdays…
I even made it after The St. Patrick’s Day Massacre, a tale never told above a whisper and certainly not in a semi-public forum such as this. As a recruitment tool, I founded an e-newsletter, a Tuesday morning blast in which I... e-blasted my friends who didn’t join me at the Cowboy Cafe the week prior and solicited accompaniment for that night. The Cowboy Cafe Weekly News.

Here’s a sample of the work. This is just a clip of one edition; each week featured other segments such as Where Are They Now?, Letters to the Editor, This Week’s Discussion, stupid limericks, and tons of inside jokes. The takeaway 20 years later: peer pressure sure does work.

The Cowboy Cafe Weekly News

Tuesday, February 6, 2001

ARLINGTON-- The best Tuesday night of the year to date was kicked off last week when David & Marguerite Flynn busted through the saloon doors and hunkered down at The Cowboy Cafe's bar. The dyspeptic duo, eager to improve upon their 2000 performances, introduced a new form of organized gambling to the Cafe for the first time in CCWN history. Though wagers have been made over Trivial Pursuit answering, beer drinking, and burger eating on Tuesdays past, Dave "Meat Patty, and I'm Not Introducing My Mother" Flynn took on the role as Cowboy's first poker dealer. Wagers and winnings were made liquid immediately and consumed on site. At night's end it was difficult to determine a big winner, but it was unanimously agreed that Kevin "Blackjackalope" M----- was the big loser for declining to participate.

Faces in the Crowd:
Among the poker players in Tuesday's assemblage were such sharks as Jennifer "My Ante's in My Panties" F----, Chris "Diamonds in my Future" McW----, Whitney "Sixes and Nines" L----, Chris "Full House" M------, Dan "Flush" C-------, Jason "Queen High" E------, and Mike "Stud Poker" F------. Kudos to "Dealer's Pot" Flynn for supplying the entertainment for the week, but now that everyone is very much weary of the cards, it will be interesting to see whether the crowd returns to its normal recourse of discourse or whether the short-attention-span Cowboy-goers brainstorm to provide yet another escape from behaving like mature burger-eaters.

From the Where Are They Now? file... Joe C---------
Joe C------- remains one of life's true enigmas when it comes to his Cowboy Cafe attendance. In the early Cowboy days, Joe was out of reach in party towns like the Charm and Crescent Cities, so he could hardly be mocked for lameness, though he was. When he moved into DC a couple of years ago, it was speculated that he could be the next in a long line of specimens genetically suited for Cowboy Cafe greatness. A noted penchant for being overserved, a strong affinity for red meat, and an absolute dearth of social activity were a strong start. A frame leaner than most science class skeletons meant easy booth squishing. A car of his own, a government job with 8-hour-days, and a growing reputation as a tightwad (e.g., his beer-hoarding reputation as "the Budmiser") all added up to a definite Tuesday night regular for certain. What could go wrong?  What most folks underestimated about "Boltin' Joe"  were his utter apathy, his fondness for sofa cushions, and his relationship with his television. The CCWN reports that he has threatened to darken the Cowboy Cafe doorstep this evening. Be there.

Announcements:
Last week Rob R------- was supposed to come to Cowboy, but when he crawled out of his domicile, word has it that he saw his shadow and retreated to the safe haven of his townhouse. Looks like it'll be six more weeks of wintry Cowboy Cafe avoidance for Rob this year.

Correspondence:
Some former Cowboy standouts wrote in to say they were disappointed that they weren't mentioned in last week's All-Star Edition of the CCWN. Victoria "The Bay City Hay-Roller" H--- has directly challenged the inclusion of her partner in Vicket, Cricket. Cricket was participating in the Fox network special "2001's Biggest Ironies" by vacationing in the Virgin Islands and was unavailable for comment.

We had such good times.

The very pretty Peggy, then the not-pretty-at-all-but-not-a-hideous-looking-guy-and-certainly-not-without-his-charms Manny were behind the bar, and they tolerated, then appreciated, then befriended our band of burger eaters and beer swillers. I recruited all my family for visits, work friends, anyone who wanted to join this fracas of ground beef and cheap suds. Honestly… it was a delicious burger topped any which-a-way with fries and all the draft Budweiser you can drink for $10, and add in the Cheers Effect. Week in, week out. Ten bucks? Why wouldn’t I go there every Tuesday?

It was beautiful. That little dive served as a large container of glue for our gang of college friends. It’s only after the ensuing tug of life in directions counter to burgers and beer in a single bar week after week that I appreciate how remarkable it was that we held it together for a number of years.

27 was the peak number of our friends who hit Cowboy on a single Tuesday. For those who've entered the rather confined confines, that number is extraordinary. I still marvel at it. August 11, 1998.

Speaking of unhealthy apexes, then there was this:

Faces in the Crowd: Dave “Thin Like” Flynn was in the house last Tuesday, and he participated in the single greatest feat of gluttony that Cowboy has enjoyed. After eating his TNT Burger and drinking beers for a couple of hours, he was dared to eat two more burgers. And these were no ordinary burgers. One Cooky's Burger and one WhitneyBurger add up to quite the gastrointestinal barrage. Add the wrinkle that he must consume them both in 20 minutes and not quench his thirst for even longer, and you have a significant challenge. Flynn completed the task without breaking a sweat, incredible because he sweats from watching TV. Look for similar challenges to be thrown around Cowboy on future Tuesdays.

Wow. (I believe Squeaky had 2 one night.)

Oh, yeah, there was a WhitneyBurger. Cowboy was too cheap to reprint menus with it on there, but you could ask for it by name. (It's just a GusBurger facsimile. Over easy for yolky fry sop-up.)

Cowboy closed at midnight, so the hardcore among us would need to polish off Tuesdays with something extra and inadvisable.

Rhodeside Grill. Whitlow's. Carpool.
Shots. Billiards. Naked foosball.
Hangovers. Wednesday. Hangovers.

It was a cultural phenomenon for a select group. My dad showed one Tuesday, ordered a Johnnie Walker Black and was chastised, then had a WhitneyBurger and Bud to fit in, and had a great time. We took our girlfriends there. Then wives. Then kids.

The Dusty Trail

That iteration, Cowboy 2.0, survived my move to DC in 1999 but fizzled after many of us had kids. When I moved back to the old ‘hood for the third and presumably final time in 2003, I tried to jump-start it, but attendance was understandably spottier than ever, and it was frequently just a couple of us and a bartender we couldn’t name. Once I left town in ’05, that era faded.

Chapter 4, if you’ll pardon the mixing of naming conventions, rolls on today. There are still a few gheorghies in the area up there, and they have hit it when they can. Teej used to be a solid patron, and quite clearly Jerry is still a regular. Half-priced burger Tuesdays begat many a brunch for a small group of us, especially on parade days with Abe. When I’m back up there, I head that way whenever possible, sending up a flare to the old CCWN gang to join me. I made it to The Boy on a Tuesday earlier this year. It still holds up.

The goofy name, a 1990’s version of the menu informed customers, came from its owner Charlie. Prior to buying and renaming the Clam House restaurant (which must carry its own set of stories), he’d been working in Jackson Hole at some fancy-pants establishment that served palate-cleansing sorbet between courses. When he suggested ditching the sorbet for something heartier, the reply from the owner was, “What do you think this is, The Cowboy Cafe?” And so, with the re-purposing and re-titling of this NoVa barroom, he gave a pair of big birds to that gent.And we reaped all the benefits.

Two owners later, the décor has been improved just a touch, though not enough to change the ragged atmosphere. The back room (which we used to call Siberia) has been expanded and fixed up nicely. The bar’s shelf overhang (it was like the Seinfeld apartment carpentry) has been fortunately removed. And the music isn’t the bartender’s choice of CD or a shallow assortment of juke choices, but TouchTunes or the like. Meanwhile, Bud AND Bud Light has now become a plethora of craft options at robust pricing.

What hasn’t changed? A tiny parking lot and great burgers. Half-priced on Tuesdays.

Our tiny dictator commissioned a write-up on the Cowboy to be coupled with a link to this article published last week. Check it out, and you observant types might notice a nice quote from a former gheorghie.

Cowboy Cafe: Three Decades of Arlington’s Dive Bar

On lazy occasion, I’ve considered the cataloging of my personal Top 10 watering holes of all time. It’s hard to say for sure, but the leader out of the gate for the top spot may well be The Cowboy Cafe in Arlington, Virginia. Get some, gheorghies. And call me when you do. I’ll try to make it out.

No Sorbet and Free Beer Tomorrow!

Biggie, Lemmy, Whitney, & the Doobies

It's that special time of year again, and it seems to come earlier each year. Not Halloween. Not Thanksgiving. Not even Christmas, even as there are holidays-themed ads popping up here and there already. It's Rock Hall time!

I could offer something purportedly pithy, but I won't. The quick and dirty:

• Pat Benatar
• Dave Matthews Band
• Depeche Mode
• The Doobie Brothers
• Whitney Houston
• Judas Priest
• Kraftwerk
• MC5
• Motörhead
• Nine Inch Nails
• The Notorious B.I.G.
• Rufus featuring Chaka Khan
• Todd Rundgren
• Soundgarden
• T. Rex
• Thin Lizzy

Some familiar faces in the crowd of 16 nominees, and a handful of new entries. Christopher Wallace and Patricia Andrzejewski, aka Biggie Smalls and Pat Benatar, both get their first nods together, which is fitting in some way I haven't come up with yet. (Something about "best shot" seemed inappropriate.)

DM and NIN are back on the ballot, while Devo and Rage fell off.

LL gets the Gas Face. Again.

Kraftwerk is like Jack Morris... in no way whatsoever, except appearing on the Hall of Fame ballot for a long time without entry. Maybe they will follow his lead.

Personally, I would go with Whitney (natch), Depeche Mode, the Doobies, Priest, Biggie, Soundgarden, and maybe even DMB. But I don't get a vote... beyond the Fan Vote, which I encourage you to exercise. Once again, here's the snubbees.

As always, I have made my predictions. Last year I was mostly on, so here we go.

In the meantime, tune into the Les Coole 2020 Nominee Sampler:

City of Champions

First the Capitals (well, really, first the Kastles, who've won six World Tennis Tour titles since 2008) captivated the National Capital region, and now the Washington Mystics have brought a title to the DMV. G:TB fave Elena Delle Donne scored 21 despite three injured discs in her back, and WNBA Finals series MVP Emma Meesseman scored 22 as the Mystics defeated the Connecticut Sun, 89-78, to win the fifth and deciding game of the series.

The Washington Nationals kick off their very first NLCS this evening. DC United travels to Toronto to play a first-round MLS playoff match next week. The Washington NFL franchise...well, they will likely still exist for a while.

Ghosts in the Machine

Because The Police were my favorite band as a kid - kinda my gateway into alternative rock - and because Ken brought them up last night, and because some of us (meaning all of you with the exception of TR) really need to work on posting content to this paragon of internetting, here's my top 5, in no particular order (note that this is a damn near impossible mission for me, as I love so very many of their songs):











I'll do this again this afternoon. I'm sure you'll see five different songs.

Crosslander I: The Listening

I spent the better part of 15 hours in the car with my kid this weekend, rolling through the turning leaves of Upstate New York on a pair of college visits. Since it seems to require an engineering degree to figure out how to play music from a mobile device through my Mini's audio system, we chose our entertainment from the diverse selection available on SiriusXM. A handful of highlights for your listening pleasure:

We had the good luck to be traveling during SiriusXM's coverage of Austin City Limits, so we heard several really good live sets. Judah and the Lion are dork-rockers in the extreme, over the top in their efforts to engage their fans in singalongs and high-energy action. They covered Blink 182's 'All The Small Things', as well as arena staple Rock 'n Roll Part 2. They're a really fun live listen.



When Billie Eilish started her set with 'Bad Guy', the crowd went batshit. Near as we could tell, the batshit never stopped. Folks love that young lady.



Bridie Monds-Watson is a 19 year-old from Derry, Northern Ireland who records as SOAK. She's something else.



The Avett Brothers showed up to perform a live session on The Spectrum on Saturday morning, backing their new album. This is their first overtly political record, as the first single, 'Bang Bang' might hint.



Local Natives got a lot of run with 'Megaton Mile', as did Spoon with 'No Bullets Spent'.





Whirlwind trip for me and my girl, and maybe one of the last times we'll get to do that before she goes to college. I love that she loves music, and I love even more that she wanted to listen to it with me instead of putting on headphones and withdrawing into her own world. I'll remember this trip for a good while.

Oran "Juice" Jones, Shaniqua and SNL: How Donald Glover Helped Create the Most Amazing Deep Cut Comedy Reference in the History of Ever

I have been fumbling around the gym as of late, limited in what I can do. I can do some cardio stuff (stairmaster, bike) and some core stuff, but that's about it. I am also doing some light weight stuff to minimize atrophy. Very light. The kind of weights that a 75 y/o man would use. But that's all my feeble right side can do these days. But I digress.

I found myself lollygagging about the gym last week without my headphones, which I forgot. This happens once a month or so, because lost brain cells. I was forced to listen to whatever the gym was playing. And gym music is almost always terrible. While on a stationary bike that day, the gym played the early 90's dance hit "Everybody Everybody" by Black Box. As a loyal Clivilles and Cole disciple, I did not pay much attention to the tune. But you and I both know it.  Here it is:



So I was forced to listen to this tune. And I immediately began obsessing about that "Ow" sample that I kept hearing. First time it's used is one second in, and it's used a total of 14 times! It sounds so funny and strange and, well, effeminate. I went home that night and couldn't get that dumb song out of my earhole. I dove into the bowels of the internet and found out that the sample is from the song "Shaniqua" by an artist called Oran "Juice" Jones. Here is the video. Go to the 29 second mark to hear the "Ow."  But don't go any further. The song was posted to YouTube in 2008 and has 665 views, which should tell you how bad it is.



But Oran "Juice" Jones did have one "hit" song (allegedly) in 1990. It is "The Rain." The video is below. It has over 18 million views, although it doesn't hold up all that well in the #METOO era.



So here's where things get interesting. As I watched that video of The Rain last week, it seemed oddly familiar. So I logged on to my AOL account, opened up Netscape and began surfing the web to scratch this intellectual itch (no, not THAT itch. That itch was crabs and has been resolved. Thanks for asking.). 

It turns out that "The Rain" was the basis for a parody sketch done by Donald Glover in his SNL appearance in May 2018. He performed it very late in the show as a character named Raz P Berry. Watch the original video above, and then watch the sketch below.



This sketch is amazing - the Rambo reference, the jewels/credit cards reference, the addition of anal cavity jokes. Comedy gold! And it's amazing because Glover must have known that 99% of the viewers would be like "WTF is going on with this sketch about stalking and pee," while 1% of viewers would have their jaws drop and be blown away.  Of course, with a live/streaming audience of ~20 million people, a 1% hit rate for Glover still meant the sketch made 200K folks happy.

Working hard to make a very small group of people laugh is noble, and consistent with the mission of this blog, so I wanted to shout out Donald Glover. This post takes us form early 90's dance to Oran "Juice" Jones to SNL to Glover. That, my friends, is a four-sided comedy rhombus that Donald Glover helped make happen.

While we're celebrating Donald Glover, I want to go on the way-back machine to the early days of viral on-line videos. Donald and another up-and-coming comedy actor, both with ties to the UCB Theater, had great supporting roles in a funny video released on-line in the mid 2000's. Who knew that one cameo performer would become a groundbreaking actor/show-runner/hip-hop artist/social commentator, and another would have a long run on SNL and become one of the most prolific voice-over actors in Hollywood?



Enjoy your weekend, folks.

The $6.9 Million Dollar Man

Howdy folks. Wanted to give an update on my feeble spine, which continues to give me problems two months after a herniated disc first flared up. After visiting several orthopedists, I decided to follow the lead of the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC, the top orthopedic surgery spot in Gotham. I will get a discectomy, which is the insertion of an artificial disc. It's a real fun procedure. They cut a 2" opening into your neck, push our esophagus out of the way, take out the damaged disc and put in a titanium replacement. And I'm not getting just any replacement. I'm getting the MOBI-C. It's what is recommended for folks that are not too decrepid and sedentary. The use of titanium replacements is relatively new, so there are no long-term case studies to review. So I'll be winging it, I guess. A pic of where they will slice my neck and push my esophagus to the side is below.

In a related note, my surgeon graduated high school in 2002. That is not a typo. But his pedigree is pretty ridiculous. And the googles also say he was a nationally ranked sculler to boot. His bio is here if you want to peruse it and feel inferior about your life achievements so far. Click through his education history and research history to see everything he's done. But if you want to feel better, you can remind yourself that he probably never chugged beer from Juan Carlos' epic eight-man frat-a-pus funnel or played Z. So we got that going for us, which is nice.

Surgery is set for Thursday 10/17. One night in hospital, one week out of work, and then aggressive PT. The hope is to remove numbness and the weakness in my right side. I can do a grand total of one push-up these days, given the disc is pushing into my C7 nerve root, making my right side feeble and my index finger quite numb.

Thanks in advance for the rehashed masturbation jokes! I'll try to send some photos from the procedure. Pray for me that I will get a catheter.

Nationals Fan Cringefest: October Baseball Open Thread

Though fans of the Washington professional football team might disagree, it's a pretty good time to support the region's major sporting franchises. The Mystics are up 1-0 in the WNBA Finals and are favored to take the title. The Caps are one year removed from an epically cathartic Stanley Cup title run. DC United have clinched a playoff berth for the second consecutive year, and are one Wayne Rooney postseason flex from being a serious contender. The Washington Spirit, while not very good, boast Mallory Pugh and Rose Lavelle, two of the youngest and most exciting members of the World Cup-winning US Women's National Team.

And the Washington Nationals shook off a very slow start and somewhat quietly put together a really good season. The Nats host the NL Wild Card game against the Milwaukee Brewers this evening at Nationals Park. Crazy-ass Max Scherzer (11-7, 2.92, 243Ks in 172 innings) takes on Brandon Woodruff (11-3, 3.62, 143Ks in 121 innings) in the winner-take-all tilt.

Nats fans will be watching this game through their fingers, as they cover their faces to avoid having to witness yet another postseason failure. Washington has never won a postseason series (though, cruelly to two fan bases, their MLB.com history page reflects the Expos' 1981 NLDS win over the Phillies). They're 0-3 in deciding NLDS Game 5 contests, though they led in all three of those. Eight of their last nine playoff losses have come by one painful run.

I have watched very little baseball this season. It might, in fact, be the least I've watched the game in my memory. Some of that is because the Red Sox were generally boring, and a lot of it has to do with the demands of real life, but the fact remains. But October is different, even if I'm a man without a team. Or a man with a whole bunch of teams, one of which needs to send the Yankees home to play golf without a World Series title.

Play ball!