A 2021 year-end post

Looking back at all my old posts on a near-daily basis through the On This Day plug-in I use, I realize that I’ve written a whole lot of year-end posts throughout the years, which makes me feel somewhat obligated to write one for this year as well.  Initially, my thought was “fuck, ain’t nobody got time for this shit,” but then I stopped to actually think about the year 2021 as a whole, and realized that making one, really shouldn’t be that difficult.

Seeing as how in my double dad duty life, I’m typically always in search of the path of least resistance, “shouldn’t be that difficult,” pleases me.

Although plenty of things happened both in my own little bubble, as well as the rest of the world, for me, the year really can be summed up pretty succinctly as a tale of two halves.  The first half of the year was spent preparing for the birth of #2, where my job made me miserable and was sucking the life out of me.  And then literally halfway through the year, #2 arrived, embarking on the second half of the year where my job still made me miserable, but it was compounded by the ever-living difficulty of parenting two under two with insufficient help.

All while the coronavirus pandemic that plagued most of 2020, still raged on throughout the entire 2021, regardless of how stupid, arrogant and ignorant the rest of the world seemed to become because we’re all a bunch of selfish fucks who can’t understand the importance of quarantine and distancing, and have to be out in public events and crowded restaurants.  Vaccinations came into fruition, and smart people got them, but it didn’t make everyone suddenly invincible, as much as it dulled the fatality capabilities of coronavirus.  But that was good enough for everyone, and I stopped pondering which was worse between the unvaccinated and the vaccinated who thought they were bulletproof.

On that description alone, it sounds like 2021 may have sucked, and I’d be the first to admit that I did have a tremendous amount of time with dark clouds over me and inside my head.  But none of it has any bearing for the love I have for my children, no matter how hard they’ve made my life in this current juncture, and no matter how much I bitch and write pissy brog posts, they are still my happiness and the greatest things to have happened to my life along with mythical wife.

This isn’t to say that the year was entirely a wash.  It’s just pretty easy to sum up in very broad strokes, that make it sound negative.  Aside from the birth of my second child, she brought baby luck into play, and despite thinking I wouldn’t ever see it in my lifetime, the Atlanta Braves won the World Series.  I mean if that isn’t the very embodiment of baby luck, I don’t know what was, the Braves had 88 wins and had no business making the playoffs, but they did, got hot, and rode the momentum all the way to the Commissioner’s Trophy.

I also got the NXT UK Tag Team replica blet, that I’ve been waiting to come into existence for three years.  That pleased me greatly and was a good way to wind down the year.

Oh, and the new job I secured with the year winding down.  A substantial raise, elevated job title, and for the inevitable future where I have to report back into an office, a shorter commute.  Plus, it gave me the long-awaited departure from my toxic current boss, and I can’t wait to get the fuck away from her.  That shit is really fantastic news too.

But because I’m a nerd that takes general notes on the happenings that interest me, the following things also occurred in 2021:

  • Baked potato worshippers basically tried to throw a coup and invade the Capitol in Washington DC in defiance of the failed 2020 election
  • I took a UX course to try and pivot my career path
  • Got vaccinated, had it kick my ass. Got a booster later in the year, which kicked my ass again
  • Tried the Dr. Now diet from My 600 Lb. Life of eating 1,200 calories a day; I lasted a week before throwing in the towel, but still lost 3.1 lbs.
  • The housing market in America went completely bonkers, and I capitalized on it by refinancing on my house to help ourselves financially
  • Alabama won its 52nd National Championship
  • Tom Brady won his 43rd Super Bowl; but first with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
  • The Milwaukee Bucks, yes Milwaukee Bucks, won the NBA Finals
  • My upstairs HVAC died in the middle of summer and had to be replaced, causing a very uncomfortable week in August
  • And finally, speaking of deaths, notable passings in my world included: Hank Aaron, Larry King, Screech from Saved by the Bell, Jessica Walter, New Jack, Norm Macdonald, John Madden, Betty White, and most tragically, Sonny Chiba. 

But let’s not end this post talking about deaths.  As droll and depressing some of the tone of this post might’ve read, there is absolutely no reason for me to not be optimistic about 2022.  I have a new job that pays better and gets me away from the toxic situation that shit all over my 2021, and as my girls grow and develop, life should become a little simpler, and pave the way for me to get bits of my own life back, gradually, little by little.

Those things alone carry great weight, and as long as those things can progress positively, not even the dismal state of the world’s handling of coronavirus can drag me down.  And with that, I close the brog book on 2021, and hope for nothing but the best going into year 22 of fairly consistent brogging.

How the transfer portal can break college football

Over the weekend, my father-in-law was giddy with excitement over the news of Oklahoma quarterback, Spencer Rattler, transferring to South Carolina, via the seemingly most common words at the end of every college football season, the transfer portal.

Firstly, I can’t not hear that phrase and not imagine that the transfer portal is portal stage from Mortal Kombat II, where college ballplayers all show up and mingle around, with hopes that they’ll land at another school where they can either play for a contender, start, or go anywhere where they can hedge their bets and put up gaudy numbers in preparation for a future NFL draft.

Secondly, when the transfer portal really began becoming a thing within the last 4-5 years, I actually hated the idea of it.  It basically turned into the equivalent of free agency for college athletes, and further fed the narrative that these athletic ringers all give no shits about education at all, if it already wasn’t clear enough but purists and romantics like me can hope.

But it really began picking up steam when the most notable cases were players who were just seemingly looking to gravy train their way to powerhouse programs, and were just kind of this rich getting richer circle jerk among notable contending teams.  But then it seemed like every Tom, Dick and Harry players were jumping into the portal to try to land somewhere else, regardless of if it made sense or not.

Like Justin Fields who went from Georgia to Ohio State; that made sense.  Fields was blocked by Jake Fromm, and he was a phenomenal talent that needed to go somewhere where he could flourish.  Jalen Hurts and Kelly Bryant transferring out of Alabama and Clemson respectively made sense, since both of their schools had benched them for the hot new freshmen.  But then you have cases like Josh Jackson, who was mediocre at best, transferring from Virginia Tech to go to Maryland where he vanished into obscurity.

The point is, commitments from players have all but become meaningless in the grand spectrum of college ball, because over the last few years, there’s been little reason why anyone would stay anywhere for more than two years, for any reason.  As far as I was concerned, the transfer portal wasn’t really something that was healthy for the game, in general.

All the same, with Rattler joining the Gamecocks, it does open the door for some intriguing storylines next season.  I haven’t really paid any attention to any sports over the last year or so, but from what I can interpret, a large part of him choosing South Carolina had much to do with Shane Beamer, a former coach at Oklahoma, being there, and him wanting to play for him again.

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Ohio State sure loves to recruit quitters

Sauce: Ohio State linebacker seemingly retires in the middle of a game, over not being subbed in

Honestly, there’s not much for me to add to this story.  This is retroactively being written, so I’m having a hard time getting back in to the same head space in which I wanted to write about this in the first place.

I suppose to jotted down this note because I always love when there are stories about Ohio State fucking up in some capacity, because I think they’re one of the most overrated athletic programs in the country and I always relish in seeing them getting knocked down, even from within, with entitled uneducated athletic ringers who can’t spell “luck” or “fuck” on social media.

Or maybe it’s because the guy in question’s name is “K’Vaughn” which I’m not entire sure on whether it’s supposed to be pronounced “Kevin” or “Keh-Von” and really it’s just a low key dark humor of weird black names that this guy could be one of the actual players who participated in the Key & Peele East/West Bowl introductions.  

Regardless, lol at Ohio State for getting yet another ringer who quits the team when things aren’t going his way, as if K’Vaughn’s last name were Bosa.  Not that it really matters, because in spite of all the choking they do on an annual basis, they don’t seem to ever have any shortage of 4-and 5-star recruits wanting to go there, so K’Vaughn’s spot will likely be filled right up with someone just as good if not better, and perhaps a better speller on Twitter too.

For one night only, we are kings of college football

Earlier in the day, my wife and I were on a walk with the kids. We talked about how neither of us knew who our respective teams were even playing for their first games of the season, we’ve just been that busy and absorbed by parenting to have any time to concern ourselves over college football, much less a variety of other things.

She mentioned how tomorrow was the start of the season, but then I pulled the whole well actually thing about how the season had already started for some FCS and D-II scrub schools and how there were a handful of games on tonight-but nobody usually gives a shit about Friday night college football games, and they’re usually just scrubs playing.

An hour later I’m get a text message from my step mother-in-law, saying Go Hokies! and I’m confused so I pull my phone out and check the internet and sure enough, scrub Virginia Tech is opening their season on Friday night, hosting the surprisingly highly ranked #10 North Carolina.  Fuckin’ figures 

Anyway, to cut to the chase, Tech takes down #10 UNC, and on day zero of the college football season, it’s the de facto upset of the week, and I would wager that no higher ranked team will probably go down, short of the loser of the #3 vs #5 game between Clemson and Georgia.

For one night only, Virginia Tech stands atop the world of college football, pulling the biggest upset of the season so far. Which will be something fondly to look back on when Tech will inevitably fuck up their season when they lose to like Pitt, or worse off, FCS school Richmond. 

But until the annual crash back to earth happens, it feels great to start the season off with a big W against a top-10 ranked opponent, as much of a fraud ranking it may have been, and division rival. 

What if… Tim Tebow, the professional wrestler?

The other day, my bros and I were bullshitting about professional wrestling as is often times the norm, and the thought crossed my mind that AEW is low-key owned by the Jacksonville Jaguars, since owner Tony Khan is the son of the Shahid Khan that owns the Jags. 

Recently, I saw some blurb about how despite having signed with the Jaguars, the attempting-to-return-to-football Tim Tebow is no guarantee to make the team, even though he’s still built like a tank and trying to come back as a tight end and not a quarterback, and then the wheels got turning in my brain to do so fantasy booking in the event that Tebow flames out of football again, but instead of trying to pursue professional baseball, chooses professional wrestling instead.  Especially since there’s already a convenient transition from the Jags to AEW, being under the same family umbrella and all.

After about five minutes of bullshit, I realized that this hypothetical bullshit would be better served as brog material and not a passing conversation in private company, because some of these ideas would be fucking gold in an ironic sense if they were to come to fruition, even though there can hardly be fewer things in the world nerdier than fantasy booking professional wrestling.

Anyway, Tim Tebow is cut from the Jags, not for anything performance-related so much as is it that the Jags are an NFL team and NFL teams are more afraid than Gabriel is in The Walking Dead of anything and don’t want Tebow’s faith to ever be mentioned in the same breath as them.  He’s in the locker room, silently crying, cleaning out his personal effects, and our character arc begins with Tim saving a cross that he hung, for last, staring at it wistfully, thinking to himself why the good lord has failed to give him the strength he needed to make it back to the NFL.

Tony Khan enters the locker room, and gives Tebow some fluff about how he performed great, and how his failure to make the team had nothing to do with his talent.  But seeing as how he wasn’t going to make the team, and to not let such physical gifts go to waste, he offers Tebow an opportunity to join All Elite Wrestling, so he could still potentially have a platform to spread the word.

“Professional wrestling?” thinks Tebow.  The fake sport with fake storylines, so much of which is debaucherous, scandalous, and frequently sacrilegious?  Khan assures Tebow that AEW is different than those whom might have put out such unsavory product, and points no further than AEW’s own TNT Champion, Miro, God’s Favorite Wrestler, as proof of AEW’s respect and commitment to Christianity.  Tebow is intrigued, and agrees to a developmental tier-1 deal.

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The new era of college sports

A while back, I used to have the attitude that agreed with the notion that college athletes shouldn’t be getting paid to apply their talents under the banners of their respective schools, and that the education that they receive, should they actually choose to accept them, was compensation more than adequate in the tradeoff.

Things change though, and for every Cardale Jones that flaunts his hired gun status that gives no shits about a college education, are still countless other student athletes who are stalwarts at the college level, but the harsh reality is that they have very little to no actual future in professional ranks.  It’s those guys that that have helped change my tune when it comes to compensation for student athletes, because college is most likely going to be the pinnacle of their athletic careers, and it would be great if they could cash in on a modicum of it before their window of opportunity to earn, is shut.

So the news of the NCAA now allowing student athletes to start making money on their likenesses, endorsements and social media accounts is definitely a positive step in the right direction at a knee-jerk reaction, but at the same time, there’s a lot of gray area and things that could potentially go in an unsavory direction, that spurred this train of thought post.

Like I said, my knee-jerk reaction is one of positivity, and general happiness for all student-athletes who will now start to be able to make some money off of their sweat, efforts and contributions.  They won’t be explicitly being paid by their schools, which is still something that I agree should not be allowed, but it’ll be nice to know that an innocuous autograph session or them showing up to a local car dealership or restaurant to make an appearance can get them some punishment-free cash, just because they play some sport for their school.

The one thing I like the most from this is that I think it will help curb the culture of one-and-dones, in mostly basketball and football.  Fringe prospects that aren’t Zion Williamson or Trevor Lawrence-good might actually stick around for another year or two, and now have options to choose from whether or not it’s worth becoming a benchwarmer in the pros versus remaining a god on campus and cleaning up on endorsements and other profitable endeavors.

College-good athletes will be more likely to stick around four years, and not only will their teams benefit from having physically and mentally matured juniors and seniors on their squads, the ones that actually take life seriously might actually get educations and graduate legitimately, instead of a parade of paper African-American studies majors trying to survive illiterately in the world after college.

The benefit to this is that fringe contenders’ windows of contention might remain open a little bit longer, because key members of contending teams might stick around longer if they’re capable of earning while in college, instead of bolting for any Euroleague hoops or XFL or CFL if they can’t make it to the bigs directly. 

And it goes both ways when it comes to the power schools in the nation, because obviously schools with preexisting relationships with major companies will still get the lion’s share of top prospects, but if programs start to get a little crowded with upperclassmen staying in school, it’s going to funnel prospects or force incumbents into the transfer portal to go to other schools, which may or may not raise the amount of parity throughout college athletics.

But like I said, it’s not a perfect solution, and for all the good that’s possible, there’s still a lot of room for negative things to be or remain the case; like the aforementioned obvious aspect that the major schools with preexisting relationships with companies like Nike, UnderArmour and other relationships are still going to get the best prospects, due to their now-available opportunities for endorsements, so it will still probably feel like the rich will remain getting richer, while all the other schools will feel like they’re fighting over scraps.

And foolishly counterpointing one of my positives, programs like Duke will be tailor-made to probably do well under this new era of college sports, because as much as everyone loathes Duke, Duke is great at producing college talent.  Sure, a lot of it has to do with Coach K’s brainwashing, and he is allegedly on his way out, but the fact of the matter is that Duke rosters historically have been loaded with well-built teams that dominate the college level, and keeping these rosters mostly together for 3-4 years at a time might result in some return to prominence by the Dukes and other programs that operate in similar manners.

Finally, let us not overlook one of the more annoying outcomes of this development: the era of self-promotion and rise of obnoxious social media presences of student athletes now who are going to embark on missions to promote themselves, develop personas, brands and identities to try to monetize and make bank while they’re in college now.  If I had as much time to fart around on the internet and sports websites as I once did, I can only imagine how obnoxious things have the potential to be as college athletes across the nation will be getting up in our virtual faces trying to become famous so they can make money.

Either way, it’s ultimately a step in the right direction, with both positives and negatives up in the air, and the fact that it’s so new and unrefined, it’ll take all of two seconds for college athletes and the inevitable wave of agents that will prey on them, to find all sorts of loopholes and gray area for things to get muddy really fast.

But man, how much must it suck to be the graduating seniors of 2020/21’s NCAA athletes?  Sure Najee Harris probably was cleaning up on all sorts of under-the-table non-monetary compensation while winning a national championship for Alabama, but how salty do you think he’s going to be knowing that all the freshmen coming in are going to be able to make money without needing to hide and be as secretive as he once was?

Love him or hate him, Tom Brady is a winner

Not that I’ve been paying that much attention to the NFL this season other than the ironically entertaining aspects of a season that I maintain probably shouldn’t have happened in the first place; if it were up to me, the upcoming Superb Owl would be the Washington Redskins Football Team versus the Buffalo Bills, so that we could have a repeat of 1991, but a team with an idiotic interim name and a 7-9 record would, give the Buffalo Bills a loss in the Superb Owl, for old times’ sake, and the season would end in an ironic combination of some things change, some things stay the same.

Instead, we have the heavily favored Chiefs, which in itself is a little difficult to comprehend, because for the longest time the Chefs (yes the Chefs) were that one team that always made it to the playoffs, but would always get bounced in the second round, usually losing to like the Steelers or Broncos, and nobody would ever really take them seriously as legitimate contenders, especially since Andy Reid took over, and that guys manages timeouts like he manages cheeseburgers, which is to say he devours them all, and then there’s nothing left at the end.

And opposing the Chefs, is a team that hasn’t sniffed a championship since 2002, but at the very helm of it is a guy that has sniffed more than his share of Lombardi trophies in his time, in none other than Tom. Period. Brady. Period.

Just about anyone with a sports pulse knew of the general story of how Tom Brady left the New England Patriots, and instead of retirement, he just kind of inexplicably signs with, of all the teams in the NFL, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  A team that had gone 59-101 over the last decade, and was coming off of three straight losing seasons, with two of them placing last in the pitiful NFC South division.

For a guy that literally had nothing left to prove, as he already has six Superb Owl championships, an underwear model wife, and lord knows how much money earned in his career, another season for a cellar-dweller like the Bucs seemed like a really sad way to end his career, and likely injured on the way out as a shit team usually can’t protect their QB.

But I guess Brady really wanted to prove that he could win without Bill Belichick, and put to rest permanently the answer to the question of who really was the talent behind the Patriots’ success throughout the last 20 years, and seeing as how one has reached the Superb Owl, while the other didn’t even make the playoffs, I guess the answer is pretty abundantly clear now, but it really shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Love him or hate him, Tom Brady truly is the GOAT of football.  It doesn’t even matter if the Bucs win the Superb Owl or not, although me personally I can’t say that I kind of would be rooting for Brady, despite the fact that I’m most definitely no fan of the Bucs, but I’ve never really had any issue with Brady, and I respect the greatness.  But he’s already proven his point and one that really was inconsequential in the grand spectrum of things but was clearly still very important to him to stamp his claim over Belichick as the real reason for the Patriots’ success.

But really, I just kind of sadistically enjoy how everyone fucking hates Tom Brady so much, but it’s like he feeds off the hate and burning rage that his existence incites within haters, and it only makes him that much more effective.  Patrick Mahomes is a legend in his own right, being someone who was capable of lifting the once-hapless Chefs into becoming the respectable defending champion Chiefs, but in two weeks’ time, he’ll be going up against the literal god of professional football, and he’ll be back to square one at having his own thing to prove.

In the end, I don’t really care who wins, because the NFL is kind of a sad sack of an organization, and I resent just how much pull and influence it has on the entire, well country.  Which is why I’d like to see Tom Brady hoist up yet another Superb Owl Lombardi, because it’s the closest thing to a giant middle finger to all the haters there possibly could be.