The Weekend in Review

Random Thoughts from NFL Draft/NSS Bowling Tournament Weekend, in Pick-by-Pick, Frame-by-Frame Order

• We'll start with a random finding. Since we don't have ESPN Classic as a part of our digital cable package, I now have nothing to watch when my show's at a commercial and there's nothing else on. So, the other day, I started flipping through those 60 odd music-only channels that nobody ever watches. The very last channel is called "Old School Rap." I kid you not. I tune in, and they're playing a song by Biz Markie! (Believe it or not, he did make other songs besides "Just a Friend.") At the next commercial break, I flip over and they're playing "Brass Monkey!" Amazing.


• One more random comment: for work, Klondike made a Risk-like game. Yes, I said for work. (The game is awesome by the way, especially the battle cut-scene. My brother wasn't too impressed, but I am since I don't know how to do that.) The game requires the .NET Framework Distributable. (By the way, Klondike, the link you provided was out of date. Your game requires version 1.1.4.) So, I download the file, and it's abbreviated filename is "dotnetredist." Every time I glance at it, I see "do not resist," and think, Is Microsoft trying to tell me something?


• Friday night was hospitality night, which basically consisted of my family and maybe 10 other people crowded around the bar in the basement banquet room of the American Slovak Home.


• Saturday, 12:25 PM: Oh, crap, the draft started at 12! No, fortunately, ESPN was operating on FOX MLB playoffs time, so the first pick didn't come until 12:25 or so.


• And with the first pick... Eli sucks! Eli Sucks! I was waiting for the Peyton Manning Face, but I had to settle with the Brian Cashman Face. Oh well.


• And with the second pick... the Raiders select. Yep, he said "select," not "trade their pick to Cleveland." Son of a gun.


• The fourth pick goes to Phillip Rivers, and Mel Kiper now has a 92-88 lead over Chris Mortensen for most Bernie Kosar comparisons.


• My God King! That's Mike Ditka's music! Well, not quite, but the Giants did just give away quite a bit just to make Archie Manning happy.


• OK, maybe I should go cut the grass now. Fortunately, mini-Kanka's learning to take my place, so I was able to bring out a small radio while I "supervised."


• I was able to find a local radio station, WOBL 1320, that was carrying their own version of the draft (which basically consisted of one guy with a microphone on site in New York, and two or three other guys talking to him while watching it on a TV in the studio). Coincidentally, my fired-up friend Todd is a high school football sideline reporter for WOBL.


• By this point, the WOBL guys are basically accusing the Lions of extorsion for forcing the Browns to move up. And, they're not to surprised that the Browns are going for it.


• And with the sixth pick... half of the neighborhood is out mowing their lawns, and they all turn when they hear me yell, "IDIOTS!"


• Time for the NSS banquet, so I missed most of the second round. Here's the banquet highlights:


• The door prize drawing must have been rigged, since every single person at our table, except one, won something. My 86 year old grandpa won a golf umbrella, and my 86 year old grandma won a baseball cap. The baseball cap was promptly traded to me for a travel mug.


• My infamous cousin was one of the bartenders (good times). At the end of the night, there were two tables of card games still going. By this time, my cousin, our friend Brian, and I wanted to get going. My uncle had taken most of the hard alcohol home earlier, but there was still a mostly empty bottle of rum left. Not wanting to be caught with this in his car, my cousin hands the bottle, plus a can of Coke, to one of the card players. "Remember me when I run for National Director."


• The first place we hit was called the Red Clay, located on the mighty Vermillion River. The Red Clay's gimmick is the "shot ski," a wooden ski with five shotglass sized holes in it. The goal is to place a shot glass in each of the holes, then on the count of three, five people lift the ski and take a shot simultaneously. With the help of two friends we met there, we completed, and subsequently were able to sign, the shot ski.


• Our next stop was the local Scorcher's. There, my cousin ran into most of his former co-workers from the South Lorain branch of First Federal. The one woman's son was playing in the band that night, and she was very fired up about it.


• Also at Scorcher's were a few girls from my sister's class that we knew. They, shall we say, were testing the quality of their fake ID's. I'll not name names to protect the innocent. Still high comedy knowing that they'd probably been to this place more than I have.


• Random note: Brian is in his third year of Dental School at tOSU (they have a great dental school), and happens to be an aquaintance of one Phil Bomeli, my freshman RA, and a 4th year at tOSU Dental. Phil is originally from Solon (yes, Mike, the same Solon mentioned in "Moon Over Parma"), and we celebrated the Brown's first win in '99 together.
  
• Sunday morning, my dad pointed out that Julius was taken early second round. I also noticed Courtney Watson was taken late in the second round. Congratulations. These guys weren't supposed to be taken until the 3rd/4th/5th round, so maybe there was still hope for Darrell.


• Now it's time for the Doubles and Singles Tournament. Saturday was the Team Tournament, but I'm far too rusty for that. So, I teamed with my dad for 3 games of Doubles, followed by three more of singles.


• Being as I'm weak, and a fat mess, I can no longer use my grandpa's old ball, so I had to find an alley ball. I found a nice one named "Larry," and also picked up a nice pair of blue and purple rental shoes, with neon green eyelets.


• I did decent in my three doubles games (decent for me at least), but unfortunately, my dad played down to my level, and didn't beat me by much. I should mention here that we shared lanes with the NSS President, who is a good guy despite being a Steelers/Pitt fan.


• In the lanes next to us was a fired up old guy. Every time he thought he had a strike, he'd throw his arms out to the side. Then, in one motion, he'd fling his arms across his body, and let his momentum spin him into a 180. Now facing away from the pins and towards his bowling mates, he'd do a little hop, and try to time his landing with the ball hitting the pins. Unfortunately, every time he did his little victory dance, he'd always leave one pin standing. Still high comedy.


• My singles performance wasn't that great. The women were bowling in the other wing of the building, so I couldn't use losing on purpose as an excuse. Oh well, it was a good first experience.


• I came home and checked NDNation for news on the Blue & Gold game. Here's my thoughts on that.


• Ty mentioned that he winced every time the players hit each other. Yes, you don't want anyone getting hurt (a la Gary Godsey), but if you were on the team, and you read this, wouldn't you tend to take it easy for the rest of spring? We want these guys playing hard.


• The Blue team beat the Gold 35-7. On closer inspection, the Blue team had 90% of the starters! Well, no wonder they won! How about first team offense against first team defense, to give them a challenge. Or, as suggested on NDNation, bring back the pickup game style from the Holtz Era, and see how the second team running back would do behind the first team line.


• I noticed that Rashon Powers-Neal (future husband of Nora Rose Cooper-Surma-Powers-Neal) put up some nice rushing stats. Nice, I thought, we're finally running with the fullback. It's about time. It turns out I was ahead of myself. Powers-Neal got his rushes in at tailback; he'll be switching between the two positions this year.


• Back to the draft. I was paying much more attention to the draft than ESPN2 was, so I pulled up an Internet ticker while watching the Indians game.


• The Browns take a DT in the 5th round. My heart dropped at this moment, now knowing that they wanted a DT, and also knowing that they wouldn't be picking any more.


• The Texans took Glenn Earl, who has been hampered by injuries. Maybe there's still hope for Darrell.


• Vontez Duff joins Earl in Houston, and Jim Molinaro is headed to Washington.


• What's this, the Giants have a compensatory pick late in the 7th round? Maybe Ellen's dream will come true... But, no.


• It's time for Mr. Irrelevant, and it's not Darrell. Son of a gun.


• Monday morning, I find out that the Broncos are interested in Darrell, and will put him on the IR until he's recovered. In fact, they called him around 2pm on Sunday, and said they would sign him if he went undrafted. Well, at least it's not Pittsburgh or Baltimore, I thought. He wanted to go to Chicago, but Denver made the best offer.


• Also on Monday, it was reported that Ced Hilliard signed with the Cowboys, his boyhood dream come true.


• Monday night I flipped over to Comedy Central's Bar Mitzvah Bash. The show ends with Snoop Dogg doing a fired-up rendition of "Gin and Juice." (Is it possible to sing "Gin and Juice" and not be fired up?) He ends with, "With my mind on my money and my money on my mind," and does the cheesy echo effect where he just says "mind mind mind mind..." over and over again. You can't make this up


• Now it's Tuesday morning. I see that the Vikings have extended an offer to Omar Jenkins. Nice, fundamentals do pay off.


• Next, I find out that Darrell had talked to the Broncos on Monday morning, and now all of a sudden, no one in Denver was aware of his injury. So, the Broncos are withdrawing their offer, despite the fact that their website his given him top billing on their list of undrafted free agents. So, Darrell's options are now Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, and Green Bay.


• Best of luck to Darrell. There's no way I'd by a Broncos jersey, but a Bears or Bills jersey I'd consider. I might buy a Packers jersey, too, but then again, Mike knows where I live.

Transaction Wire later this week, and I'll try to get the KankaMatic pages updates (hopefully I mean it this time).