Tuesday Morning Quarterback

When I got to the office today there was a package sitting on my desk. I received my sixth copy of Gregg Easterbrook’s “The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse” — I keep giving them away! — via Amazon’s used book marketplace. The book is in near-perfect condition, perhaps because it seems to have been stolen from the Naperville, Illinois Public Library. Either someone stole the book from the library and then sold it on Amazon, a Naperville Public Library employee is stealing books and selling them on Amazon, or the administrators of the Naperville Public Library are knowingly reselling their library books on Amazon. I don’t think that stealing library books is a crime that any police department seriously enforces, so people could presumably make quite a bit of money stealing library books and posting them for sale on Amazon. How odd.

I was in football nirvana this weekend. I watched no less than a dozen games — college and pro — since I left the office Friday night. The best by far was last night’s Boise State / Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl, one of the top ten football games I’ve ever seen. While watching Saturday night’s Giants / Redskins contest on the NFLN I kept wondering about all the commercials they kept airing for themselves. “Why in the world,” I asked, “do they keep showing me commercials for something they know I already have?”

The only people who could have possibly seen all the ads for the NFLN were the people that currently have the NFLN. And it wasn’t just the 30-second commercials spots, either. During the game they were constantly bombarding me with teasers and float-overs talking about how wonderful they are. Aside from the fact that it was mildly annoying, it was also pointless!

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from Tuesday Morning Quarterback:

Actual correction from last week’s San Francisco Chronicle: “A story about mathematical references mistakenly said that 1,782 to the 12th power plus 1,841 to the 12th power equals 1,922 to the 12th power. Actually, 1,782 to the 12th power plus 1,841 to the 12th power equals 2,541,210,258,614, 589,176,288,669,958,142,428,526,657 while 1,922 to the 12th power equals 2,541,210,259,314,801,410,819,278,649,643,651,567,616.”

This week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback includes a delicious link to college football’s funniest fight song. It also includes the best football commentary on the web, and a little bit about that lovable V’Ger, from the first Star Trek movie.

If you’ve been trying to find Gregg Easterbrook’s column on Salon and you can’t, it’s because he switched to ESPN.com’s Page 2. From now on, you can get your weekly doses of TMQ right here.

Last spring Penthouse magazine, after announcing the publication of topless photos of Anna Kournikova, had to pay a judgment and issue an apology to model Judith Soltesz-Benetton, the woman really in the pictures. On Miami Beach, Soltesz-Benetton had been seeking a suntan without lines when she was glimpsed by Frank Ramaesiri, a vacationing salesman from St. Louis, who mistook her for Kournikova, snapped photos and sold them to Penthouse. …

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It took Drew Bledsoe exactly two games to have the best passing day in 43 years of Buffalo Bills history. Bledsoe threw for 463 yards, three touchdowns and no picks against Minnesota, a bigger single-game yardage total than any compiled by Bills Hall of Famer Jim Kelly or Pro Bowl QBs Jack Kemp, Joe Ferguson and Doug Flutie. From the start of the fourth period through his winning toss in overtime, Bledsoe was 19 of 24 for 266 yards and two touchdowns. At one point in the fourth quarter, Bledsoe’s lip was cut; he went the sideline and had the cut stapled together without anesthesia, immediately returning to the game. Remember, this is a gentleman whom most of the league’s general managers did not want when he was placed on the trading block last winter, questioning his arm strength and spirit.

Another terrific excerpt from the Tuesday Morning Quarterback:

In the NFL there are high-scoring 45-42 games and low-scoring 13-9 games; games that feature the pass and games that feature the run; there are games where teams try wild things and games when teams go conservative; there are games decided by a few sudden big breaks and games decided by long accumulations of field-position maneuvers; there are games played in heat, cold, rain, and snow. In the NBA, pretty much every game ends 98-93.

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There is a guy named Gregg Easterbrook writing for the sports section of Slate.com. Gregg runs a mailing list called TMQ - Tuesday Morning Quarterback. If you are a football fan you should go with much haste and abandon to join the list. He is hysterical and brilliant. Every Tuesday night you’ll receive a wonderful compilation of the worst coaching decisions, best plays, and … well … lots of haiku.

Two Good Reasons to Love Slate’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback Mailing List:

• He never writes about the Washington Redskins. They are the “Chesapeake Watershed Region Indigenous Persons”. The Tennessee Titans are always called “The Flaming Thumbtacks”. (Note their insignia.)
• He often mentions Victoria’s Secret, BodyPerks, and Playboy.
• Special Bonus Third Good Reason to Love Slate’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback Mailing List:
  The Obscure College Score of the Week