Video: Ohio State releases second trailer for Fiesta Bowl
December 30, 2015Browns Film Room: The Good, Bad and Ugly of Johnny Manziel versus the Chiefs
December 31, 2015Happy Old Year, WFNYers! I am blessed to have the honor and privilege to beam or beep out or transmit or however-the-hell-the-internet works to you one of the last things you will read in 20151 and the last edition of “While We’re Waiting…” the year 2015 will ever see … ever.
What grade to give 2015? Overall? I’d say … C-. Wasn’t that impressed. What do you think? So long, 2015. The year 2016 starts in a few hours and may it be shinier, better tasting, and less filling. But While We’re Waiting… .
Johnny Manziel will likely miss Sunday’s game against the Steelers due to a concussion. This was new news on Wednesday, even though Manziel would have suffered the concussion on Sunday. I’m aware that concussion symptoms may not be immediately apparent, lay dormant, and linger — but it’s still odd to me that Manziel and the Browns “discovered” the concussion on Wednesday. Shouldn’t everyone in the NFL be on super high red alert for concussions these days?2
Let’s go on WebMD here and investigate what the symptoms of a concussion are. “There are some common physical, mental, and emotional symptoms a person may display following a concussion. Any of these could be a sign of traumatic brain injury.” OK. Let’s see what we have here: “Confusion or feeling dazed” … “clumsiness” … “slurred speech” … “nausea or vomiting” … “headache” … “balance problems or dizziness” … “behavior or personality changes.”…
…
…
Oh my god. Watching the Browns gives me a concussion! Brb I’m going to tell my boss I’m going home for the day. I think I need to lie down.
So ESPN is trying to reinvent New Year’s Eve with the College Football Playoff. After a smashing success in year one of the fifth professional sport’s season-ending tournament, Richard Sandomir described in the New York Times how the world’s most powerful cable network is trying to use use that asset to change viewer behavior on one of the biggest holidays of the year.
“College football fans will stay where they are,” [Artie Bulgrin, ESPN’s senior vice president for global research and analytics,] said. “They’ll treat it as a holiday.” He added that internal research was showing a quadrupling in fans’ “intent to view” the semifinals since midseason. “That’s very high,” he said. “People are making plans.”
Bulgrin is sure fans will make ESPN happy on New Year’s Eve and in the years ahead.
“This will change habits,” he said. “There’s no doubt that for true fans this will change behavior.”
If he is right — and he probably is — ESPN’s plan to transform New Year’s Eve may have us sipping Champagne and singing “Auld Lang Saban.”
ESPN using sports as part of its conscious agenda for world domination is nothing new, but deploying the College Football Playoff to transform a well-established holiday that has remained distinct from sports is a gutsy power move. Will it work?
Well, millions of people will watch. So it will work in that sense. I didn’t like the idea at first, but I relented because I’m craven and will kowtow to any move that allows me to watch good, high-stakes college football. New Year’s Eve is tricky though, because it’s the one day where even social miscreants like myself could be in a television-barren setting.
However, I do remember watching soon-to-be Brown Johnny Manziel’s last college football game up until I left the house for the evening on New Year’s Eve — the 2013 Chick-fil-A Bowl, which ended around midnight ET. The game was a riveting shootout, and Manziel’s Texas A&M eventually prevailed 52-48 over Duke.
This is just another reason being a West Coast sports viewer is better than living further East. I suspect I’ll skip out of work early, catch as much of both games as possible despite the slight annoyance of having to be around a TV until 8:30-9:30. But for everyone back at East, it’ll be a logistical challenge to watch the ball drop out of one eye and watch a crucial third down out of another. Some midnight smooches will be postposed to watch ‘Bama-MSU. It’ll cause fights.
We’ll eventually embrace the New Year’s Eve football … but it’ll feel weird at first.
Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan did a giant podcast for the 20th anniversary of Heat. It’s a lot of fun, so listen to it here or on iTunes. I couldn’t resist using it as an excuse to share some random thoughts about Heat, which I love an unreasonable amount. Some of these thoughts echo the sentiments of Bill and Chris, some of them openly contradict them, and some of them have nothing to do with what they talked about. Did I mention that I love Heat? I’d give a spoiler alert, but the movie came out 20 years ago.
- I had forgotten how funny the scene (video) in which De Niro’s character meets Amy Brenneman’s character is. “Lady, why are you so interested in what I read or what I do?” is the least probable way to begin a long-term relationship. Also, “A book about metals” is as great an out-of-context line that’s hilarious in every situation as American Psycho‘s “I was returning some videotapes.”
- Waingro is an all-time great movie wildcard character that just screws things up. Dwayne Bowe is the Waingro of the 2015 Cleveland Browns.
- Though he puts on a facade of a consummate professional criminal, Neil (De Niro) is a lousy criminal. He should have known better than to rob the bank, draws attention to himself in a diner by repeatedly smashing a guy’s head on a table, has way too much trust in his reckless degenerate confederates, doesn’t know when to quit while he’s ahead, takes way too many risks, and inexplicably loses Waingro in a parking lot, which is the root cause of everything that goes wrong for him in the movie.
- Al Pacino shoots a man who’s using a child as a human shield! He has a six-inch radius of success. Could you imagine him explaining to his superiors that he shot a child? “Well, you know, I thought I could hit the shot without shooting the kid.”
- Director Michael Mann’s gunfire is the “When the Levee Breaks” of movie sound effects—it’s always the most deafening, arousing sound you’ve ever heard no matter what the volume’s set at or the quality of your speakers.
- Did anyone consider that Ashley Judd was sleeping with Hank Azaria (who lived in Las Vegas) to pay off some of Val Kilmer’s (Ashley Judd’s husband) gambling debts?
- Al Pacino’s overacting is an American treasure. (Poor Ralph. Warning: language.)
Sorry for that. Now I’m gonna go pick up chicks with stories about iridescent algae.
Your Calvin and Hobbes strip of the day. Every Browns coaching and management change (I feel smarter already!):
And now for the random 90s song of the day. Semisonic’s “Closing Time” is a 90s pop-classic that really completed 10-year-old me’s copy of Now That’s What I Call Music! 2. Check out that music video. That payphone! That video cassette player! That rotary phone! That Ashley Judd haircut! WHAT YEAR IS IT??? It’s 1999, baby.3
Closing time
One last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer
Closing time
You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay heeeeeeeere
Happy New Year, everyone.
- Or, one of the first things you will read in 2016. [↩]
- With some admitted difficulties caused by the players, who probably downplay symptoms to avoid being removed from a game. [↩]
- Or 1998. It appears the video is from 1999, though Semisonic released the song in 1998. [↩]
13 Comments
I don’t mind the NYE games, but I am not a fan of having the 2nd game on NYE start late enough that a tight prolonged game will potentially interrupt the NYE’s festivities close to midnight and make others in the house upset.
May this officially be the last day we are ever Waiting For Next Year.
https://36.media.tumblr.com/ff6fa91513dd0b02c25813b3f9d9d13e/tumblr_mypixghgDL1s9w3uzo1_400.jpg
“College football fans will stay where they are,” [Artie Bulgrin, ESPN’s
senior vice president for global research and analytics,] said.
“They’ll treat it as a holiday.”
It already is a holiday, you arrogant schmuck. And a fine one at that without any help from ESPN. But hey, if people want to spend NYE staring at a TV for hours instead of socializing with real live people — including those of the female persuasion — be my guest.
I can’t wait for some network to transform Christmas morning. Maybe a combo MMA/WEE steel-cage blood-fest.
NYE is my least favorite “holiday”.
Filling the evening with watching relevant football up til almost midnight is great.
I’m pretty pumped about the NYE games. Like you, I was watching that A&M/Duke game and it was one of the more entertaining ways to spend a NYE in a very long time. I’ll be couch-bound tonight with a beer in hand. I could watch pop acts lip sync songs in front of strangers or I could watch four of the best teams in the country vie for a championship. I’ll go with the latter every time.
The female persuasion will be watching football with me. 😀
And as far as socializing with real live people…ie. Ball drop drunks…you can keep it. I hate NYE parties.
We’ll be at Bdubs with the football fans.
The very last Calvin and Hobbes strip ran 20 years ago today…
http://reactiongif.org/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2015/01/Dr.-Evil-For-My-Homies-Homies-One-For-Me-Pour-Reaction-GIF.gif
SUPER!
(Just kidding! Enjoy however you like. I’ll probably be asleep by 10;30.)
Was on vacation in SW FL during that game, and didn’t even intend to watch it.We barhopped on foot among a cluster of places, and strangers from all over were increasingly paying attention and talking to each other about it. Was a highlight of the trip.
I dont mind them this year, but we play games and chill. If OSU was in it, I would be more glued to it and less a part of the group activities.
Until months later you found out the Browns drafted JF
As a cfb junkie, this presents a challenge for me. My wife and I traditionally pick out a movie to watch at home and spend the evening together. Now, I must either plan the movie so that I can see then end of both games 7:30-9:30 est) or have Bama-MSU on my ipad during the movie. Neither of which will make my wife happy. I hope the ratings are poor, so they decide to switch back to January 1. The traditional day to pig out on cfb.
I still watch “Heat” to to this day even after seeing at least 50x.