I'm not sure what the consensus is on Tony Kornheiser in his role as Monday Night Football color man, but let me put in my vote for HE SUCKS. 

Somebody needs to tell him his job as a football announcer is not to give opinions on franchises.  It's not his job as a football announcer to give speeches full of flowery and melodramatic hyperbole.  He's a color commentator -- his job is to be insightful and funny and initiate clever banter with Joe Theismann.  That's it.

The disaster that is Tony Kornheiser reared it's ugly little bald head non-stop in this game:  his constant barrage about what a horrible franchise Arizona is; his calling Arizona a "bad team" SEVERAL times; his tirade about how the city of Phoenix should just "close up the new stadium and call it quits for the year" if they lose this game; even on Arizona's first offensive series, they got a first down and he said they should "just call it good, go home right now, and tell everybody to drive home safe".  I just spent two hours trying to watch a great football game, and instead found myself saying over and over again, "Who asked you, Kornheiser?"

It doesn't matter if everything he said was true -- that's beside the point.  Making inflammatory statements and knee-jerk reactionary comments is his job on PTI, not Monday Night Football.  If they wanted that in the booth, they would get Charles Barkley.  In fact, I'm hoping that Barkley's appearance in the booth in the first half was a message -- maybe it was ESPN saying, "Is it just us, or would Charles Barkley be way more entertaining than this Pez-headed jerk we mistakenly hired?"

Tony Kornheiser is only mildly entertaining on PTI, and he's simply unbearable as a live football commentator.  He's not a live sports announcer, he's a just loud-mouthed New Yorker with a superiority complex.  The color commentator for a football game is supposed to be the guy you wish you were hanging out with watching the game.  He should be that likeable dude who's witty and insightful, not that guy you wish would just shut up and watch the game.  Whatever he is, he is not Monday Night Football material.

Wow, I never had such a range of emotion regarding football in the state of Florida as I had in the last 24 hours.  First, the usual stomach-churning distaste, as I watched "The U" show their true colors as the pompous, arrogant, self-inflated, overrated ass-hats that they are, and have always been.  Usually, when there's some on-the-field melee in any sport, it's just a few overheated morons flailing at each other, and then about 100 people trying to pull them off each other.  But no, not Miami.  Every one of those idiots just went freaking berserk, taking out their frustration of their irrelevance to college football on some nobody team like Florida-International.  Very impressive, you dudes are super-tough.  Especially when you stand in a circle and jump around like a bunch of brainless dilholes. 

A scant few hours later, my mood lightened considerably, although for the same reason I was earlier disgusted: my disdain for Florida college football. I had the pleasure of watching the dismay on the faces of the leather-faced, visor-clad, perpetually juvenile Gator fans as the Auburn Tigers kicked the living lizard snot out their beloved team. I've never cheered for Auburn like I did tonight (except maybe in a few 'Bama games), and it was nice to be rewarded in such dramatic fashion. Thanks, Chris Leak!  And thank you, Gator fans, for making my weekend.

Note:  This blog was written last Sunday, 9-10-06.  I couldn't post it until now because my computer was acting like a punk.  Yes, I know Ohio State won again this week, so this is old news.  But, the sentiment still stands.

If you read my profile, you'll notice I live in Austin, TX.  Therefore, I am a Texas Longhorns fan.  And I will say right here, right now, that Ohio State KICKED OUR BUTTS this past Saturday.  Plain and simple, no excuses.  We even had some bad calls go our way, and we still lost.  We just didn't have it, and Ohio State did.  They were/are just a better team than us.

But, that being said, KUDOS for burning down your town!  Nice job!  You do realize that was WEEK TWO, right?  And that you were favored to win, right?  And that you live in Columbus, Ohio, right?  What a bunch of tools.  I know, I know.... it was just a few drunken idiots, everybody in Columbus isn't like that.  I know.  But that doesn't matter -- what matters is that the ridiculous, overblown ego your fans have just breeds that kind of behavior.  It's the "jackass index" -- the more overall jackass fans you have, the more likely that you'll have those super-jackasses who will riot and set half your town ablaze if you win a game. 

The Texas Longhorns won the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP last year, and there was no riot.  They were underdogs, and won one of the best college games ever seen after a last-second miracle touchdown by their superstar, and no fires were set.  Don't get me wrong, Austin partied its big goofy ass off, for sure.  But there's the difference between Texas and Ohio State -- Texas Longhorn fans have CLASS.

And it's not just in Columbus -- here's a little story that was posted by someone in my neighborhood:  "I watched the first half of 'the big game' yesterday in a bar in the marina
district of SF, because it was near a rehearsal space where I was rehearsing with a band that afternoon. I don't normally hang out in the marina, for obvious reasons.  For those of you not familiar with Marina, it's the place represented by TV shows about SF...where everything's 'fresh'.

Anyway, there was a pretty strong contingent of Ohio State fans in the sports bar where I watched the game. Way more obnoxious than any UT fan I've ever experienced. In my experience, UT fans are typically more about the party and singing 'Eyes of Texas' than being obnoxious. There was a small strand of burnt orange in the bar, but mostly a lot of red and silver. But of course the best looking women were in orange.

Although the game went badly for the Longhorns, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the Buck-eye fans. Because after the game, the fan-fare, the hooplah, and the bragging, they're still from Columbus, Ohio.

Kudos again.  Your jackass-ity stretches from coast to coast.  Even in the bar where I was watching the game, the one guy who was rooting for Ohio State (besides my friend Tim, an Aggie) was the most obnoxious guy in the bar.  Every time OSU would do something good, he'd stand up and nyah-nyah the crowd (nobody even knew this idiot), running up and blocking the TV and just acting like a complete fool.  I even heard him on his cell phone (what a fan -- on his cell during the game), talking to another jackass OSU fan I'm sure, saying, "Yeah, guess what dude?  I'm in Austin, watching the game!  Huh-huh... It's even a bar called the 'Little Longhorn', and I'm just here hollering for OSU... Huh-huh-heh-heh...."  Again, what a fine representation of your fan base, Luckeyes.

Let me remind you again -- it was WEEK TWO.  You were favored.  You had almost your entire offense back, and we had a freshman QB.  Congratulations, you beat a team that was ranked #2 only because of last year's performance.  I mean, what better reason to run around like deranged meth-heads and set fire to stuff?  I mean, after all, you do live in Columbus, Ohio.

Home of THE Ohio State jackasses.

.... then please keep your long-winded blathering to yourself.  I'm not saying people who don't write their own blogs should have no opinion.  They have as much right to have an opinion and comment on a blog as anybody else; that doesn't bug me.  However, the "bloggers" who only read other blogs and give long-winded, one-sided, usually ignorant diatribes need to either have the balls to write their own blogs or stay off the people who do.

If you're so opinionated and eloquent as to leave 8-paragraph comments on other people's pages, then sack up and come up with an original thought that other people can comment on.  But that's my point -- that's why these people don't write their own blogs.  No cojones.

If you don't want to write a blog, and just want to read others' and leave one-or two-sentence comments, that's cool.  We all appreciate the readership and the input.  But when some numbnuts leaves three full comment spaces worth of harsh criticism and opinions, and then you go to their page to see what they have to say for themselves in their own blog and they haven't written a single word, then that's just a royal pain.  Not to mention pitiful. 

Please don't waste our space with your relentless yammering if you don't have the courage to write something original yourself.  It's weak, and it sucks.

You gotta be kidding me.  It actually ends in a tie??  What kind of total and absolute socialist crap is that??  What a bunch of tee-ball bulls***.  "Everybody wins, isn't that great!?  I mean, nobody loses, so nobody has to be sad and get their feelings hurt.  I love soccer, it's a nice game."

I realize it may be a some kind of total point system that determines the final tournament winner, but that doesn't make it any less of a wussy way to do it.  That "total point system" is also one of the many reasons I could care less about NASCAR, too -- a guy who gets second place in every race can be the season winner?  What a joke.  But at least every race actually has a winner.

I can't believe that the world championship tournament, the biggest stage for the alleged greatest and inarguably most popular sport in the world -- actually lets its games end in ties.  What a bunch of sister-kissin' nonsense.

I actually even tried to watch a bit of it!  "Hey, cool, USA and Italy are tied, 1-1.  The game's almost over, I want to see who wins..... What???? That's it??  They're just going to end it in a 1-1 tie??" 

There is no winner, but there is a loser -- soccer.