(In Ivan Drago voice) Sorry. You will lose. You and your crazy escalators…

Read it, don’t read it, I don’t care…just needed to get some things off my chest.

In no particular order of chronology or importance…

On the clock, but I am using that term lightly.  I have about two hours of in air time coming back from Atlanta, so that is plenty of time to rant.  Let’s turn and burn.

EMAIL: mark_filler@hotmail.com

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1)      Greetings and salutations, all.  I hear they are adding MORE bowls to the bowl schedule.  MORE?  We were already getting 6-7 teams in them anyway since we have so many.  Plus, one of the new bowls’ locations is the BAHAMAS.  Are we trying to give the players incentive to LOSE?  Let me ballpark that it will be down to the Bahamas and Idaho bowls before some late season game for someone.

2)      Which city wants some of my magic NEXT?  I traveled to Cleveland for work last week, and the Indians lost their home playoff game the night I was there.  I traveled to Atlanta for work yesterday, and the Braves AND Falcons BOTH dropped a game at home. Ok.  So the Braves weren’t at home but that is my theme, dammit. The Braves get eliminated from the playoffs and the Falcons loss eliminates me from my losers pool.  Should have just kept picking on Jacksonville…and I guess I am bad luck to a city’s sports team.  Things happen in three’s whoever is on my list next.

3)      I predict that Eli Manning will make a comeback starting THIS week.  Seriously.  I FEEL it.  Or maybe it is because Michael Vick is injured, and I HAVE to start Eli in fantasy.  Ugghhh.  It is a one QB league, so I can poach someone off the waiver wire.

4)      The Flyers fire Laviolette THREE games into the season.  Sweet, so to ADD to a bunch of underachieving players they now probably now add a whole new system/ approach too.

5)      The Dodgers will be starting Clayton Kershaw on three days rest for Game 4.  I get it.  No one PREFERS to start their stud on less rest, but when you have TWO studs on your team (Greinke), the odds of you losing BOTH games are not very high.  AND, if they take Game 4, they now can start Greinke and Kershaw to start the next series…just in inverted order.

6)      The spread might be tied for the largest in history, but I would still be cautious about not thinking the Broncos can cover.

7)      The Lions Dominic Raiola better watch himself talking trash to band people.  He might one day encounter some football drop out who tried to be an offensive lineman before playing the tuba.

8)      Lot of wasted effort and time.  So, the Raiders TRADED for Matt Flynn, then OVERPAID him to be their starter, and now have CUT him from the roster in general.  Good direction out there.

9)      If you took out porn from the equation, and measured the most Googled things over the last two days, I bet you that “thad lewis” would rank pretty high.

10)   You try to learn something every day.  Yesterday, I learned that in Fulton County, GA, it is illegal to have anything related to “happy hour.”  If you sell booze at your restaurant, you can’t have a particular time frame for drink specials.  So, you either don’t do it, or you have to do it ALL day.  Interesting and pretty irritating.  Catching a happy hour is the best.

11)   You must be allowed to fly lower from Denver to Atlanta then from Denver to any of the northeast cities.  We seem MUCH lower than normal on each of these trips.

12)   Cross sport injury update for you.  Packers Clay Matthews will miss time with a broken thumb.  Dodgers Matt Kemp will have surgery and hope to be back next year.  Colts Ahmad Bradshaw will have season ending surgery and make Trent Richardson fantasy owners MUCH more relaxed.  Owen Daniels will be out 4-6 weeks and once again makes me glad I didn’t get sucked into THAT hole in fantasy again this year.  Falcons Julio Jones MIGHT miss the rest of the season with a foot injury from last night.  Fans in Atlanta don’t know this information yet.  They are already being weighed down by their record and the loss last night at home.

13)   Thanks for passing that along, Vince.  I am extremely proud to know that the Steelers are the highest rated winless team in the recent NFL power rankings.  We are the best loser.  We are the team that people don’t FULLY want to play even with our record.  We are the Steelers.  We are proud.

14)   Steve Smith is complaining about refs, but I think deep down he is wondering why he had a prime about the length of Terrell Davis.  My, Steve aged quickly.

15)   My, someone either in front or behind my row is having some internal problems.  You are ruining the taste of my pretzels since taste is a lot of smell.

16)   Someday when I say ‘these pretzels are making me thirsty,” one of the stewardesses will be a Seinfeld fan.  Someday…

17)   Yankees Hal Steinbrenner has said that Robinson Cano won’t get the contract he is asking for, but that he will get a “solid” offer.  Cano, you are truly dreaming, my man.  Ryan Howard’s contract didn’t scare off the Angels from shelling out huge money for Pujols, but I guarantee the results of Pujols and HIS monster LONG deal will scare off any 10 year/ $300 plus a year deals any time soon.

18)   It doesn’t happen much, but every once in a while Pacman Jones gets GOOD publicity.  Today, his good publicity was that he was acquitted of punching someone in the face wrongly.  I believe it was a girl.  I lose track with him.

19)   The Penguins fight injuries EVERY year with their present roster.  It seems like they never get all their stars on the ice as the season goes along.  Well, with James Neal’s recent injury, I think the odds go down a little that they will.  James was hurt this week playing “ice whiffle ball.  You might need new hobbies, although that does sound fun.

20)   There were no more seats in in the coach area, so I had to take one of the available seats in “Classic Plus.”  Not first class or anything, only $10 more, and PERFECT for having enough room to blog.  I can actually SEE what I am typing right now.  First trip in a LONG time where the seat also has been vacant on both legs of the trip.

21)   I am wondering how long USC waits on this coaching search.  I know it is midseason and there are other things to worry about, but they had fought back on the recruiting trail over the last few years and they are in a precarious situation with 5 star recruits on their roster knowing they can go ANYWHERE else, play, and still have a shot at the NFL.

22)   Funny story though about the impersonators who are calling actual possible candidates and pretending to be USC officials.  When the story first broke, I thought it was actually inverted.  Funny either way I suppose.

23)   Google “insane football drive 24 90 zero deadspin.”

24)   I am sure he is listening to his body.  I am sure it is JUST the first preseason.  But, the fact that Dwayne Wade is already sitting out preseason games would not make me happy if I was a Heat fan.

25)   Churchill Downs will be getting a $12 million HUGE television for their racetrack.  Call me old fashioned.  I think that race track should not go that route.  Keep that baby traditional/ old school.

26)   If I had a little more money floating around, I would actually take a look at some of the fun stuff Curt Schiling is selling from his crib since he is now broke as hell (relatively) from spending his sports riches on video games and then getting sued.

27)   Reading menus in Atlanta at places I didn’t know, I just searched yet again for the word “chipotle.”

28)   I wish I had a ticket oak.  That would be really, really dope.  I suppose I need a yard before dreaming of this though.

29)   I walked around Atlanta to get the feeling of the town.  You learn to navigate pretty quickly using Peachtree Street, which makes sense.  Olympic Park was pretty awesome, and thankfully there was no one tending the visitor’s center so I could ask if I could be on a brick also somehow (half the park has bricks with people’s names on it that you are walking on).

30)   We also cruised by the stadium before the game to get that energy.  The stadium is located pretty centrally to the city for people and has this AWESOME fan experience area that is free to roam around, and has contests and games for people and their kids.  Pretty cool area, and I don’t think Denver has anything even close to it.  Atlanta seems to be a pretty well laid out town.

31)   Is Robin Thicke really Alan Thicke’s SON??

32)   Miley Cyrus is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, right?…that Achy Breaky guy?

33)   Nike unveiled the new Pro Bowl uniforms.  For the game that no one will watch unless someone says some female singer is performing topless at halftime, they basically just look like another version of the Oregon uni’s.  Don’t care…

34)   Warren Sapp is lonely.  He is about a month out of being inducted as a HOF’r, and he is unleashing on Bucs coach Greg Schiano in the meantime.  Sapp doesn’t like the treatment of Josh Freeman.  Neither does anyone, Warren.  I think no matter how you break down his playing skill or stats, we all know it was handled VERY oddly and somehow we came out of the story feeling sorry for Josh Freeman, who now is employed, making money, and doing just fine.  I hope he is adjusting to Minnesota weather versus Tampa weather ok.

35)   I can’t imagine that this whole Stanford football is faking injuries is true at ALL.

36)   Speaking of lonely people, DeSean Jackson says he is too fast for Darrelle Revis.  Did I fall asleep for a long time?  I swear before my last sleep session that Revis was still one of the best corners, Jackson was just ok, and that the Eagles were also under .500 WITH a hurt starting QB…Confused.

37)   Nineteen victims settled with Penn State this week.  Disturbing to say the least the amount of people in this thing.  Glad it is kind of fading away.

38)   I have had JUST enough trips over the last month or two, that parking spots seem to blend in with others.  I don’t think I remember where I parked at the airport.  Should be a fun excursion.

39)   I think the Falcons were doing their baseball boys a favor…and just losing so the media lash out about the Braves winning it all ONCE in the last forever wasn’t so bad.  Those Falcons are so nice.

40)   $7.00 isn’t HORRIBLE, but just doesn’t seem to justify being able to pull up the baseball scores.  I might have gone $4.00.

41)   I walked into the Hampton and my name was on a sign at the front desk.  How odd.  I found out I was the Hampton’s guest of the day.  The bag full of bad snacks wasn’t up my alley, the mango juice tasted just plain weird, but the automatic upgrade to a king suite worked pretty nicely.  The Hampton ALSO had a trait that I have ever seen in 1-2 hotels while traveling.  ESPN was the DEFAULT channel when turning on the television.  No more waiting through the movie commercial during that long pause until functionality kicks in and THEN changing it.

42)   Have they already started doing those hilarious NFL Facebook QB conversations?  I had people sending them to me previously.  I need to read one of those.  They are incredible.

43)   I found the dive bar in Atlanta after a couple misses.  It was called Sidebar.  I would have found it sooner, but evidently people’s definitions of “alleys” vary.  When I am looking for an alley, I am NOT visualizing cars parked on either side of the street, room for two way traffic, AND a street sign.

44)   Finally for today, what is the DEAL with Atlanta and escalators?  You leave the airport on a GIANT escalator where someone would die if they stepped wrong.  Then you get on the MARTA (the local train), and you go up a giant escalator.  You go back down the giant one to get back on the train, and then have escalators ALL over the place back in the airport.  Having the train FROM the airport is pretty cool and convenient I admit.  The train IN the airport is irritating.  I said in a blog last week I would prefer airports with NO trains.  I don’t care how far I have to walk, and just want that option.  Atlanta makes you ride this plane train that is a straight line and pretty irritating.

45)   That is it.  List is basically cleared and I might shut my eyes for the remainder of the flight.  Hope you enjoyed.  See you in a bit, Lindsey.  Will I blog tomorrow?  That is a CLOWN question, bro.  Peace.

46)   Bonus.  I get home exhausted from airport and Lindsey is watching the new Criss Angel show.  You can add Criss Angel to my man crushes.

46a)  For those of you who know about my “notebook” and my odd version of OCD, I have no idea how I survived a two day trip without my notebook, which was home under my couch.  God forbid if I ever lost that thing…Peace.