The Funny and the Informative

I have to say I enjoyed Ken Burns' Baseball: The Tenth Inning, or as it was alternatively titled, Yankees and Red Sox Highlights From the Past Fifteen Years. If I'm a White Sox fan (which, thank God, I'm not), I'm a little bit upset that they spent roughly half an hour talking about Boston breaking their 86-year championship curse, but only spent about five seconds showing the last out of the White Sox breaking their 88-year title drought. For the most part though, the show was enjoyable -- it just didn't stack up to the original documentary. The original felt like one of the most interesting history lessons I'd ever had. This addition felt like a Sportscenter special which dealt with the Yankees, the Red Sox, and steroids.

But much like Major League Baseball after the steroid era, I'm ready to move on, and give you something to take your mind off the fact that on the east coast, at least temperature-wise, Fall has arrived. Here at The Couchwarmers, we like to specialize in both the funny and the informative. Oh yeah, and ass shots too. Those really get the pageviews.

First, the informative:

Yep, That's an Ass

Congrats to the Yankees for clinching. And also to whoever that is for deciding to face the locker while changing.

Couch Pretzels: Sharktopus

Welcome back to another installment of "Couch Pretzels." Some of you may have forgotten what this whole series is about. Fear not, loyal readers. This is exactly where copying and pasting from an old post does the trick:

We all come across shows by accident. Sometimes, you develop an odd fascination with them, often because they are a train wreck, other times because they are just entertaining in a way you can’t explain. You probably shouldn’t waste time with them, but you do anyway. Soon you realized you’ve watched or heard enough to be considered a fan. You know the feeling of finding an old pretzel amongst couch cushions, don’t you? Sure, it might be from the 1PM football games, and it’s most definitely not a smart idea to eat it, but you do anyway. And more times than not, it’s satisfying in an empty caloric way. Well, these shows are kind of like that.

Now on to the issue at hand: Have you ever wished there was a movie about what would happen if scientists were successfully able to create a gigantic shark-octopus hybrid, only to watch it turn into a giant killing machine? And what if the quality of the acting fell somewhere between "hastily-produced high school play" and "mediocre porno"? And what if it starred Eric Roberts? Well luckily enough, something exactly like this exists.

Thursday Night TV Time

Just some quick thoughts on the best three hours of TV every week -- other than the 1PM-4PM block on NFL Red Zone every Sunday, of course. Yes, I'm talking about the Thursday night three-hour block of comedy on NBC and FX. Since the four NBC shows premiered last night, and the two FX shows have had two episodes each so far, I thought it was about time for some first impressions of this season. So here's a post about the three hours I spend in front of my TV every Thursday. Well, three of many, I guess. Fuck you all. I'm a grad student now, dammit.

Yom Kippur Liveblog Extravaganza

Shalom! And welcome to The Couchwarmers 1st annual Yom Kippur Liveblog Extravaganza!

I'll keep updating this liveblog all the way through tomorrow at the bottom of this post, so just keep refreshing. Mmmm....sweet, sweet pageviews.

Basically, I'm hoping that doing this will take my mind off of food for at least a little while tomorrow. If nothing else, you'll get to see me spiral down into a state of semi-incoherence as I go an entire day without anything to eat or drink. And now the moment you've been waiting for. Let's get this thing started:

A Weekend Announcement

Did anyone else watching The League last night pause it when they showed the completed draft board and analyze the draft? Yes, Ruxin's team was good, but personally, I really liked Pete and Taco's drafts.

Yom Kippur begins tonight. For all you non-Jews, that's the one where we can't eat all day starting sundown Friday and ending on sundown Saturday. All I know is that if the NFL Draft liveblog taught me anything, it's that time goes by much faster when you're trying to think of something to write about. Therefore, I'd like to announce a special Couchwarmers event: The Couchwarmers 1st Annual Yom Kippur Liveblog Extravaganza!

It'll start with my last bite of food tonight and end when I break the fast tomorrow night. Look for increased incoherence throughout the day. Fun times for all. At least if I don't post for a while, you'll know that it's because I saw a food commercial and passed out from rage.

But now, it's time to get your weekend started off right by watching a time-lapse video. These things get me every time. It's like if they made an episode of Life centered around sports. Or New Jersey.

The One Where I Judge a Barbeque Contest

I'm gonna jump ahead in the textbook and bring you the recap of my weekend as a barbeque judge before my Rogers Centre review. Usually when I want to remember things on day/road trips, I take pictures of them. Later on, I look through all my pictures and remember what I wanted to say. Unfortunately, at these barbeque competitions, only certified photographers and such are allowed to take pictures. So I'll be doing this while the weekend is somewhat fresh in my mind. As a quick refresher, this is how I became a certified barbeque judge.

Before I begin, I'll offer this piece of advice now, as well as at the end of the post: If you love barbeque, become a certified judge. If you read on, you'll understand why.

Labor Day Road Trip, Part II

In case you missed it, here's Part I of my road trip recap. Now, on to Part II:

Labor Day Road Trip, Part I

Here's your aforepromised (a word which isn't actually a word, even though you know exactly what it means) Labor Day Weekend Road Trip Recap. Characters in this saga are me and Adam, a friend from school. We're gonna do this in a few parts, partly because I can, but mostly because I don't feel like writing all of it up now.

Before we start though, I just want everyone to know that karma's gonna come back to get me sometime soon, since on this road trip, everything seemed to go right. We didn't hit any traffic and each of our border crossings delayed us no more than two or three minutes. We cut an hour-long line at the BBQ restaurant in Syracuse. We stumbled across the National Buffalo Wing Festival without even knowing that it was going on. We randomly found the restaurant that was voted to have the best beer selection in Ontario. We saw indoor and outdoor baseball in Toronto, all in one game.

And after that teaser, the highlights of Day 1:

Yes, I'm Still Here

No, I haven't forgotten about you guys. It's just that, you know, I got back from my aforementioned Labor Day road trip after midnight last night and have spent most of today getting ready for my five hours of class tomorrow. That's what happens when you do things, evidently.

Expect Part I of the road trip post to go up sometime on Thursday. Until then, enjoy the song that's been stuck in my head for the past day or so:



Also, it's been pointed out to me that in my pre-camp post, I wrote the following: "So technically, until the middle of August, I'm not a member of the 9.7%. I'll be back from the 90.3% though, and that's a promise."

So I broke a promise to all of you by deciding to something with myself. Again, my most sincere apologies. I'm an awful, awful person. To repent, I shall sit through five straight hours of class tomorrow. Yeah, that'll show me.

Summer Recap, Now with Life Goals 'n Stuff

If a cobra fought a mongoose, who would win?

Rejoice, loyal readers. I'm back. I know that Daniel promised to keep the site alive while I was gone. Well, so much for that. Whatever. I'm back and ready to crank this thing up again. You no longer have to suffer through Daniel's LeBron ramblings. Also, for those of you who follow us on Twitter, I apologize for Daniel ignoring it, unless he was tweeting Matthew Berry asking for fantasy football advice.

Therefore, for hooking The Couchwarmers up to a life support machine and then leaving the room, I'm dedicating the following to video to you: