You know, there was a time when I actually enjoyed finals
week. Seriously. Back in the glorious days of undergrad, it
was my favorite week of the semester. A
full week without classes and only a few stupid exams to worry about? Sign me up.
But alas, that was back when I could get by getting drunk almost every
night, waking up at noon, studying for a few hours and getting ready to do it
all over again, safe with the knowledge that there were enough idiots in my
class to drag the average down to a level where I could get an A with minimal
effort. Good times. But for some reason I decided to give up that
cushion by going to med school, and now I’m sitting here sober on a Saturday
night after an 11-hour studying binge, just getting started on the Chode
Picks. Well okay, maybe not completely
sober. But there’s a big difference
between “casually sipping whiskey at my desk” and “shotgunning vodka-Red Bulls
at Chaser’s”, so trust me when I say I’m not happy to be in the former
category. But enough about my hopelessly
boring life. I apologize for the
shortened version of the Picks, but I’ll make it up to you over winter
break. Fuck you, school.
GREEN BAY PACKERS (6-6-1) at DALLAS COWBOYS (7-6)
So you’re saying there’s a chance. That’s right, despite going winless for a
month without our superstar quarterback, the Packers managed to pull out a
one-point win over last year’s #1 seed in the NFC, the Atlanta Falcons. Truly impressive. I’d like to take this moment to point out
that about six weeks ago, I declared then-unemployed quarterback Matt Flynn to
be the most valuable player in the league on a dollars-per-game basis. Understandably, more than a few of you
thought I was a moron. Well, guess who
just saved the Packers’ season last Sunday?
MATT MOTHERFUCKING FLYNN, THAT’S WHO!!
And today, the Pack returns to the site of their greatest victory in the
nearly two decades: Dallas, Texas.
Surely all of you Viking and Bear fans remember watching as Aaron
Rodgers tore up the Steelers’ secondary and laid claim to the title of Super
Bowl MVP three years ago. Expect more of
the same against the Cowboys this afternoon.
Looks like we’re going to make the playoffs after… wait, what? Rodgers STILL isn’t cleared to play? Shit.
Well, here’s hoping Tony Romo can pull his usual December disappearing
act again and Matt Flynn finds a way to out-score a team with a winning record
for once.
(thinking)…
Yeah, we’re screwed.
DALLAS by 10
CAPITAL ONE BOWL: #9 SOUTH CAROLINA vs #19 WISCONSIN
Ha! No, I’m not ready
to write about this one yet. Give me
another week and I’ll try to find a way to spin it into a Badger victory. But don’t cross your fingers. Unless you’re hoping Clowney gets on the
wrong bus after the game and comes back to Madison to play for UW next season.
SPURRIER’S COCKS by a lot
#4 WISCONSIN BADGERS (12-0) vs OTHER BIG TEN BASKETBALL
TEAMS (88-29)
Fun fact: every single Big Ten team is at or above .500
after the first third of the season.
Yes, even Nebraska. Some
attribute this to the weak non-conference schedules that teams from the “power
conferences” play at the start of the year, but I’ll present a much simpler
reasoning: the Big Ten is the only true “power conference”, and everyone else
sucks, other than a few aberrant teams like Arizona, Syracuse, Duke, Kentucky
and Louisville. Shit, Arizona (the
“top-ranked” team in the country) just beat the second-to-last team in the Big
Ten by a whopping two points. There’s no
doubt in my mind that the Badgers are good enough to beat any team in the
country on any given night this year.
And as long as they remain undefeated, I’m going to give them a space in
the Chode Picks every week. They’ve earned
it. Does that mean they’ll win the
national championship? No, of course
not. Don’t be ridiculous. They might not even win the Big Ten. But it’s gonna be a fun ride regardless.
WISCONSIN by 1
HALFTIME. I’m going
to take a break from writing now, go get drunk in my sauna and roll around in
the snow afterwards. I would encourage
you to do the same, but I’m pretty sure none of you have a sauna in your
house. Ten Chode Points if you do. Twenty if you actually roll around in the
snow afterwards.
Speaking of Chode Points, time for an update. For the second week in a row, NOBODY managed
to beat me in basketball, Mario Kart or Super Smash. Congratulations to Ken Bing for having the
balls to challenge me in Smash, but I once again prevailed by a score of
10-6. Keep at it dude, you’ll get me
eventually. Otherwise, Nick Miceli, Cody
Stanton and Sam MacDonald win 15 points each for the closest guess at Frank
Kaminsky’s point total against UW-Milwaukee: 16. And honestly, one of you needs to beat me in
video games before the end of the season to keep Sam from running away with the
free case of beer at the end of the season.
This is embarrassing. Point
totals below.
Sam MacDonald: 65 pts
Dan Jensen: 35 pts
Nate Mocadlo and Zach Niemayer: 30 pts
Nick Miceli (happy birthday dude!): 25 pts
Ben King: 20 pts
Cody Stanton: 15 pts
Megan, Andy, Eric, Dustin and Bianca: 10 pts
U.S. MENS NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM (24-8-6) vs GROUP OF DEATH
(0-0-0)
World Cup Soccer. It
only comes around once every four years, and I’m probably not writing this
summer, so we might as well address this disaster now. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the
World Cup pairings were released last week, and it appears that US coach Jurgen
Klinsmann must have slept with FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s wife at some
point, because our group pairing literally could not be any more
difficult. Somehow in a field of 32
teams, #2 ranked Germany, #5 ranked Portugal and #14 ranked USA somehow got
stuck playing each other for the right to advance in Brazil this summer. Not to mention the last team in the group,
#24 ranked Ghana, is no slouch either.
It’s bullshit. This is the
biggest farce of a sporting event since my 6th-grade flag football
team was robbed of the Dunn County Parks and Rec Championship. Oh well.
I guess it’ll just be that much sweeter when we conquer Portugal and
Germany on our way to ultimate victory just like World War II, right? Wait, that’s not it. France and Germany? Russia and Japan? Italy and England? Whatever.
Europeans all look the same anyways.
And in case you’re wondering, 24-8-6 is the US team’s record under
Jurgen Klinsmann. So I actually like our
chances of making it to the elimination round.
USA!! USA!! USA!!
U.S. MENS NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM by 2
So, it’s finally the holiday season, and I know there’s only
one thing on your mind: what do I get my favorite sports blogger/med student
for Christmas? Well, luck for you, I’ve
complied a list of the things I want this December:
I want a new quarterback for the Badgers. I want a new offensive line to protect Aaron
Rodgers. I want winter to be three
months shorter than usual. I want all of
my classmates to develop transient amnesia this week. I want Paul George and Roy Hibbert to move to
Mongolia. I want the Packer defense to
stay reasonably healthy for just one damn season. I want Bret Bielema to be fired from Arkansas
and start working at Burger King. Then I
want him to get fired from Burger King too.
Last but not least, I want another bottle of Wild Turkey, because this
one is nearly empty. But more than any
of those things…
I want to get rid of the hipsters. They’re everywhere. On my streets, in my bars, even IN MY FUCKING
TV COMMERCIALS!! Listening to their
weird music, sipping gourmet coffee, wearing their hair sideways with scarves
wrapped around their puny, thin necks year-round. Good Lord.
Even worse, it seems like the female ones purposely go out of their way
to look less attractive than they normally could. They’re useless. The lowest form of life, even below
clostridium difficile and opportunistic mycoses (clostridium difficile is the
bacteria that makes you shit your guts out).
Sorry, I went off on a bit of a tangent there. But the point is, I wish I could get
shipwrecked on a deserted island, spend five years surviving with only a bow
and arrow, then return home, put on a green hood and TAKE DOWN THOSE WHO ARE
POISONING MY CITY. TO DO THIS, I MUST
BECOME SOMEONE ELSE. I MUST BECOME
SOMETHING ELSE. And if you can be the
first person to tell me where the reference in the past three sentences comes
from, you win 20 Chode Points. Everyone
after that gets 10. Yes, that was a
horribly awkward and convoluted way of plugging my favorite TV show, but I’m
drunk and if at least one of you ends up watching, it was worth it.
FANTASY FOOTBALL SEMIFINALS: KIDDIE KIDDIE BANG BANG (9-4)
vs MOLSON ICE (8-5)
My buddy Mole took an early lead on me Thursday when Ryan
Mathews and the Chargers knocked off the Broncos at home, defying everything we
thought we knew about the NFL this season.
But considering Adrian Peterson is out (at least someone on the Vikings
is taking their tanking responsibilities seriously) and Cam Newton is projected
to score a billion points against the Jets, I’m gonna be okay. And in my other league, we use a two-week per
matchup format in the playoffs, which means I already have a 50-point lead
going into this week’s semifinal game.
SHIVA BOWL HERE I COME!
KIDDIE KIDDIE BANG BANG by 6
Alright, time to call it a wrap for the week. Considering the circumstances, I’m calling
this week’s edition a success. If you
disagree, you can kiss my hairy, muscular white ass. I leave you with the traditional Jewish
Orthodox prayer, which goes as follows:
“Blessed are you, Lord, our God, ruler of the universe who has not created me as a woman”
“Blessed are you, Lord, our God, ruler of the universe who has not created me as a woman”
Well said. Go Pack.
- Chode Out.
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