I've shed 10,000 tears in the past 24 hours. All that I've been living for is gone.

R.I.P.

September 12, 1973 - November 30, 2013

We will forever miss you old friend.  Your star simply burned too bright.  

From all of us at Archie Manning's Bastards, thank you Paul Walker for enriching our lives through film.  

Warning hockey fans - FUCK DIRECTV

I don't know where else to vent, so I'll post on here so that I can guarantee no one will read it.

A couple months ago, I got fed up with Time Warner Cable and decided to make the switch to Directv (free NFL Sunday Ticket was good incentive).  Everything has gone well, until now.

We ordered the top tier package, known as the Premier Package.  We get ALL channels, including all the regional sports channels.  This excites me because that means we have Comcast Sports and almost all of the Chicago Blackhawks games.  The other day, I'm chillin watching the Blackhawks pregame show.  Then, precisely at 6:30 pm, the pregame show ends and the channel goes out.  On the screen they're telling me I'm not a subscriber to that channel.  I begin to scroll through other channels and find the broadcast of the game from the opponents' home channel.  I'm once again told I'm not a subscriber to that channel. 

I begin to understand what's going on here. 

I then check every channel that has an NHL hockey game on it, and none of them work but all the regional sports channels with random crap on work just fine.  I call Directv.  They say its a technical issue and they will have a technician call me and set up an appointment.  Well, this is not a technical issue, which is verified by the fact that as soon as the game is over, all those channels start working again.  Also, a technician never calls.

So, this same bullshit happened last night.  So I called again and told the first person that I need to speak to someone above her in the decision making process.  I finally get some other chick (for some reason I'd prefer to talk to a guy) and I tell her I just want someone to admit that they take these channels off the air during hockey games on purpose, and that purpose is to get people like me to subscribe to NHL Center Ice (the NHL version of the Sunday Ticket).  She eventually admits I'm correct.

I'm upset and not sure what to do.

I'm wondering if this will happen for every NBA and MLB game as well.  If it does, what's the point in having ANY of those regional sports channels?

GREG JENNINGS WINS WAR WITH PACKERS!

OMG This is such a sick burn bro! As a Packers fan, I can't do anything but give you credit where credit is due, and humbly surrender to the master. I really hope there is any way Jennings can allow the Packers to play out the season, and ride off into the sunset forever as a franchise and fanbase. Lesson learned. Lesson learned.

Weird Week For the Manning Family

I'm not sure if I should be excited for Archie Manning?  Feel sad?  Brace for a lawsuit?  The Manning children (less Cooper. My God look at that Google search.  Poor Cooper) are facing off for the fourth time this season (it feels like there is a Manning Bowl every other week.  It's nuts.).  So I imagine Archie will have some drinks and enjoy watching his successful kids try not to die.  The reason I feel bad is that my esteemed colleague Bear has let me know that despite a 2 year hiatus, a Google search for "Archie Manning" reveals that this site is still on the first page of results.  Meaning Archie hasn't done shit for awhile.  I'm not one to talk, a Google search for me probably results in a blank page.

Packers v. Redskins: Horseshoe Is Still Up My Ass

FUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! This evening I will be meeting with an elderly gentlemen to either exchange money for Packers tickets, or get gutted like a fish.  Could go either way! My Craigslist stalking paid off in the form of reasonably priced tickets to the game Sunday.

My brother and I have a long and storied history of going to Packers-Redskins games.  We went to one game in 2007.  Packers won 17-14 on a 57 yard fumble return for a TD by Charles Woodson.  The highlight of the day was the drunken Redskin fan in a Chris Cooley jersey screaming at us all the way to our car about how we had a horseshoe up our ass. I'm not certain how luck had anything to do with beating a team that employed Jason Campbell as its starting QB, but whatever.  To this day, whenever I see anyone in a Redskin jersey I think of this asshole.

PREVIEW:  Pretty excited for this one.  I think the Packers have a pretty clear advantage when they have the ball, and RGIII is a shell of his healthy self at this point.  The Redskins are not going to take advantage of the Packers D like the 49ers did, both because they will be able to be more aggressive with RGIII than they were with Kaepernick because RGIII probably can't beat them by running this week, and because the Redskins simply aren't as good as San Francisco on offense even at full health.  I like the Packers 34-21.

SHIT TALKING:  I'm shocked that Bearflash may be paying for another Packers ticket without actually going.  He has a long and storied history of doing this.  It happened once in 2001.  Bear got shitfaced the night before the game, fell and smashed out his front teeth on a curb.  He was forced to have his teeth fixed instead of going to the game.  Good times were had by all.

REFRESHING!

The time is here again.  That time when I have the Craigslist Green Bay Tickets Classifieds open all week so that I can hit refresh every 10 minutes or so in order to get cheap Packers tickets.  It's actually a little bit embarrassing.  If I wasn't a cheap asshole, or if I didn't have a moral issue with paying people two or three times over face value for tickets, I could go to just about every game.  There is definitely value in going to Lambeau on Sunday afternoon that can't really be defined monetarily. I choose however, to arbitrarily put a ceiling on what I'm willing to pay, in order to avoid being broke or divorced.  On top of a ticket, a guy is easily paying $20 (on the very low end) to eat and drink, even if he's savvy enough to park for free like I am.  In addition to the money, your day is completely shot.  For a noon game, I'm leaving the house no later than 9am, and probably not getting home until at least 4:30.  That's a full day.  It's a fucking fantastic day, but it's nice to sit my fat ass on the couch and watch a full day of football too.  For that reason, I obsessively scour the Internet all week for good deals on tickets.  My system typically allows me to go to a game or two a year without severely overpaying to do it.  That's probably enough.  Since I'm never getting season tickets, it seems like a good way to go about doing it.

At this point, I'm probably not going to the game this weekend barring a change in circumstances.  The absolute cheapest I've seen is around $125, which is $50 over face value.  Shit is just a mess.  Not worth it to me.

PS. As I type this, I'm receiving tweets/texts about tickets available.  I got people watching.  Shit is intense. I gotta go check into some shit.

PPS. I've got a huge problem with dickheads who get 50 season tickets somehow, and then expect to make a $100 profit on every ticket every week.  And then don't go to the games.

PPPS. I've got another problem with people who don't care who they sell tickets to, and we end up with 10,000 Bears fans in Lambeau.

PPPPS.  There was little to no point in this post.  I'm sorry I wasted that one person's time that will read this.

Zombie AMB Update: I'm Still Fat

The other day the family and I (weird. I have like, my own family now.  I'm like Tony Soprano except not from New Jersey and my only crime is poor blogging and a hygiene problem) went to a local Mexican establishment for some bold nourishment, south of the border style.  We showed up around 7 p.m. on Monday, which is pretty late, and the place was basically empty except for a few barflys and like 5 waitresses.  We were seated at a table and we waited around 10 minutes for one of the teenage waitresses to stop talking or whatever the fuck they do and bring us some chips and take drink orders.  I'm going to cut to the chase, and unvail the point of the post, which is the top 4 awesome things the teenage waitress said to me:

1) After making us wait 10 minutes for no reason: "I'm sorry for the wait.  I was busy."  That's a period at the end of the sentence because there was no forthcoming reason why she was busy.  She didn't say "I was washing dishes." or "Nobody told me you were seated in my section." or "I was giving the cook a handy, while I did blow."  Nothing.

INTERLUDE: Thing my 8 month old daughter did: Jammed her hand into the pocket of the apron the waitress was wearing.  Presumably to steal her tips and/or find some food/blow that had fallen in there by mistake.  Daddy is teaching her well.

2) After offering to bring us a second basket of tortilla chips: "You guys were hungry!"

3) "Would you like more tacos? (it was unlimited taco night.  I had inhaled 4 tacos in about 3 minutes) My record is six."  I didn't really think much of it, other than I was mildly impressed she could eat 6 tacos as it was a teenage girl. I turned down the tacos because I was going to puke after the chips, tacos and 24 oz top shelf marg.  My wife immediately smelled out the real meaning, thinking she meant the most anyone had ever eaten.  I called bullshit as the tacos weren't that big.  She came back and my wife asked.  She said it was the most she's ever served anyone in one sitting.  That fucking whore.  Now I regretted not taking the tacos.

4) "I can offer you a free apple chimi for desert."  MY WIFE: "What is that?" TEENAGE WAITRESS: "It's a dessert we offer to people when we screw up."

The moral of the story is that teenage girls are assholes and call people fat.

A Packers Fan Ode To Jim Harbaugh (Zombie Archie Manning's Bastards)

Oh, hello! It has been over two years since I last posted anything here.  As I explained previously, Twitter savagely murdered the blog and its members.  I was reminded today that TWO posts have gone up since my last one in 2011.  I've resolved that never would three straight go up without one from me. Since twitter, and since our kid was born, I've had a tough time getting worked up enough to post something here.  Soooooo, what should I spend this short lunch break discussing?

• Nuclear Physics?
• The situation in Syria?
• Race relations?
• OJSFA?

No, no, those don't seem appropriate.  Ahhhh yes, the steaming pile of shit that is Jim Harbaugh.  /smells glass /rolls around the sweet liquid inside /takes a sip /spits in on the floor.  I'll take a case, please.

Have you ever seen someone try so hard to be a fucking prick as Jim Harbaugh?  He actively goes out of his way to be a dick to everyone he comes across.  You know what though? I'm sure he's a lovely man to his wife and family.  He has to be.  Because there is no way he could function so well in society if he was really as much of a dick as his public persona would make him appear.  So this leaves me with only one conclusion.  He's a FAKE.  A fucking fakey, fake, fakerton.  He's faker than a dude posting under an alias on a blog that was semi-popular amongst close friends 4 years ago, and then went away. 

Everything Harbaugh does is an act.  All the screaming.  All the spitting.  All the "calling out Clay Matthews for being a horrible human being because he made a dirty hit on your QB".  It's all so calculating that I'd almost have to give him credit for it if I didn't want Candlestick Park to collapse on him.

This isn't as good as I hoped it would be.  2 years is a REALLY long time.

July 13, 2011

Greetings from the year 2013.  So much has happened since this blog was last updated . . .

Fall 2011/Winter 2012:

-The Milwaukee Brewers got hot and find themselves in the NLCS, falling in 6 games to the hated Cardinals.

-Ryan Braun is caught using steroids the first time.

-Wisconsin football starts a 5th year senior who led them to a second consecutive Rose Bowl appearance, this one ending in a close loss to Oregon.

-The Green Bay Packers win their first 14 games in a row before losing first round pick Derrick Sherrod to a catastrophic leg injury which likely stunted his development into the best left tackle in the NFL until 2015.  The New York Giants defeated the top-seeded Packers in the divisional round of the playoffs and nobody remembers what happened afterward.

Spring 2012:

-John Carter becomes the top grossing movie in history (later usurped in August 2013 by R.I.P.D.)

-Gugennheim Partners purchases the Los Angeles Dodgers for just $2.1 billion dollars, a purchase that would lead to the Dodgers likely winning the 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019 World Series (the 2017 World Series is set to be cancelled due to lingering effects of the strike).

-Ryan Braun denies using steroids, claiming he was using herpes medication after his ego infected him.

-14 decaptitated bodies are found hung from a bridge in Nueva Laredo, Mexico.

Summer/Fall 2012:

-Ryan Braun wins the 2012 Tour de France, claiming the yellow jersey with a spectacular climb over the Alp Du Huez.

-The United States dominates the London Olympics, as Ryan Lochte outsmarts the competition.

-Barack Obama is elected President of the United States again, leading to four more years of famine, suffering and neo-communism.

-The Green Bay Packers start 1-2 before finishing 11-5, winning a wild card game vs. Minnesota, and weakly exiting to the San Francisco 49ers.

Winter 2013:

-Juice's kid was born.

-Dennis Rodman officially becomes ambassador to North Korea.  In a semi-related note, the power goes out at the Super Bowl, nobody remembers who won or who played.

-Steve Blake has his 5th child by 6 different women.

-Ryan Braun is linked to biogenesis.  Claims "truth hasn't changed."  This later proves absolutely correct.

-Former MLB catcher John Olerud tragically dies when hit in the head with a hot dog at a Marlins/Braves game after removing his trademark souvenir batting helmet.  Apparently he really does have an eggshell skull.

Spring 2013:

-Hugo Chavez dies, Obama weeps hysterically for weeks.

-Pope Francis elected by the Council of Cardinals.  7 year old boys everywhere weep hysterically for weeks after receiving a visit.

-Golfer Tiger Woods is assessed a two stroke penalty in the masters for brutally beating and raping an aspiring actress/pimento sandwich vendor at the Masters.

-Singer Justin Bieber is arrested on suspicion of sex with a deceased deer in Mankato, Minnesota.

That about catches us up to the present, where things get really weird:

-Aaron Hernandez is arrested on suspicion of murdering at least 27 people in Massachusetts and Connecticut between 2007 and 2013.

-The United States Supreme Court issues two rulings which strongly indicate that same-sex marriage is legal in the United States.

-Ryan Braun is arrested on suspicion of bombing the biogenesis clinic in Miami, Florida.  He is suspended from baseball for the rest of the 2013 season.

-A Sharknado annihilates a large portion of Los Angeles.  A Syfy movie documents the event and garners rave reviews.

Well, it's as if we never stopped updating this blog.  I'm really glad we were able to get caught up here. With the advent of twitter it's become harder and harder to sit down and post on the blog.  Hopefully we will have some further monumental events that require more in depth analysis.