Best of the Chode Picks:

Since the Packers are on a bye this week and the Badgers essentially had a bye against Rutgers, I decided to put together the previously-promised “Best of the Chode Picks” edition this week.  It’s longer than I expected*.  Here are some of the stupid things I’ve written on a variety of topics we’ve covered over the years.

ON VINCE LOMBARDI:

Happy November, bitch! It’s officially the worst month of the year now that Halloween is over, and we’re staring down five bleak months of winter ahead, but that’s not going to rain on my parade today. Nope, not when my bitchin’ new Jordy Nelson jersey just arrived in the mail, fresh from China and expertly stitched by the finest child laborers Southeast Asia has to offer. Try to contain your jealousy. It couldn’t have come at a better time, considering Jordy is coming off of a two-score performance against Minnesota and is keeping our prolific passing attack alive and well despite the emergence of Eddie “Lace Mode” Lacy and our new power running game. Thank God, because I’m fairly certain Vince Lombardi has been rolling in his grave for the past few years due to our continued inability to gain yards on the ground. With our offense in it’s current state, I imagine he’s still spinning underground, but doing so with a massive erection, producing a hollow, knocking sound against the sides of his coffin. You are sincerely welcome for that image.

ON DRUNKEN ADVENTURES:

‘Sup? Welcome back to the Chode Picks, for what I’m pretty sure is the fourth week of the NFL season. It’s currently Thursday night, because I felt obligated to get an earlier start on the Picks than last week, and because it was one of those nights where I got tired of studying and said to myself “You know what? Fuck it. I’m gonna go get drunk in my sauna”. Yes, I have a sauna in my basement. And a pool table. Don’t ask me why, because I still live on campus. It makes no sense. But I guess that’s one of the few perks of being a medical student; the further you get from undergrad campus, the nicer the houses are, and the cheaper the rent is. Of course, it follows that you’re miles away from any of the fun bars (the ones packed with drunk twenty year olds), but that’s the price you (not you actually, but third person you) pay. But enough about my old, boring life. I’ll get to more of that later. Time to kickoff the Chode Picks with the premier matchup of the week. The date that I circled on the calendar when the schedule first came out, because it was crucial to our championship aspirations. The one that Wisconsin has been waiting for all season…

Thursday night marked the 23rd birthday of my good friend Alex, a fellow med student at UW. And seeing a good excuse to free my balls from the vice that is second year of medical school, I jumped at the opportunity to act like a normal 23-year old on a Thursday night. I told myself “Chode, you got way too drunk and missed Friday classes last week, so try to keep it under control tonight, okay? Good talk.” WRONG. Somewhere between the 6th beer and 5th shot at Church Key Bar and Grille, I realized I was going to miss my 8:00 AM lecture. Fast-forward through a drunken blur and I woke up in my bed at 12:30 PM with no money in my wallet and having missed all four hours of class. Whoops. Yo soy fiesta.

THIS WEEKEND (0-0) vs MY LIVER (0-82)

Ha. Biggest mismatch of the season. Let’s see, warm weather Badger home game plus a ton of friends from undergrad coming back to town plus my girlfriend’s 17th birthday equals one small step for New Belgium Brewing company and one giant leap towards cirrhosis when I’m 60.

Just kidding. She’s 22. Happy birthday Dana, you’re famous now.

ON AWESOME DRINKS I’VE INVENTED:

Q-Bombs are probably the greatest shots known to man.
  What’s a Q-Bomb? I’m glad you asked. A Q-Bomb consists of two parts cheap vodka, two parts cheap gin, and should be chased with beating your chest while screaming “I AM ALL THAT IS MAN!!” Ask for Q-Bombs at your local bar/tavern/brothel. And if the bartender attempts to drop your Q-Bomb into a glass of Red Bull, throw it back in their face and tell them to get you a new one.
- Taking too many Q-Bombs may result in being woken up by the police in front of the Kohl Center, facedown in a pile of your own vomit. Binge responsibly.

It’s currently Thursday night in Madison and I’m gearing up for another brutal weekend of watching football and murdering my liver 12 ounces at a time. Presently though, I’m holding off on the beer. “Why?” you ask, oblivious to the fact that I can’t hear you through your smartphone screen. Well friends, it’s certainly not because I have clinic tomorrow morning. More likely because I’ve just invented the next beverage that will revolutionize the way we alter our brain chemistry: chocolate milk and vodka. I call it coffee, because it makes me cough. Delicious. Try some today.

This week’s edition of the Chode Picks is brought to you by Kemps and Karkov.

ON BRET BIELEMA:

YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHH, THE BADGERS ARE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS ONCE AGAIN AND WE STILL OWN THOSE INBRED HICKS FROM NEBRASKA, but DAMN IT ALL BIELEMA WHY THE HELL DID YOU HAVE TO STAB US IN THE BACK YOU ASSHOLE!?!?!?!

Unfortunately, the sense of bliss felt by Badger Nation was short-lived. On Tuesday afternoon, we were blindsided by reports that Bret Bielema, a man who led us to three consecutive Big Ten championships and was THIS CLOSE to stepping out of Barry Alvarez’s shadow, was bailing on us for a bigger payday in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Son of a bitch. The news was met with mixed reactions in Madison, a combination of shock, disbelief, betrayal, anger, sadness, and even glee for the small contingent of fans who still didn’t believe in him. Personally, I was stunned and dejected by Bret’s decision, mostly because he had been leading us for the formative years of my Badger fanhood. I may have grown up under Alvarez, but I came of age under Bielema (insert your own homosexual innuendo here). I hate to admit it, but I’ll miss you, Bret. I’ll miss your recruiting, your boldness, your inability to pull starters during blowouts, your god-awful clock management skills, and your constant, self-assured arrogance. I’ll miss your sharp red blazers and khaki slacks, I’ll miss your Hawkeye tattoo, I’ll miss your receding hairline and expanding waistline, and I’ll miss your musk. Now with all of that being said, I hope you don’t win a single damn bowl game with the Razorbacks. I hope we meet you in the Capital One Bowl next year and pound your rich, smirking ass into the turf. Best of luck in the $EC, God knows you’ll need it. It’s the one part of the country where your confidence and recruiting skills won’t mean a damn thing when Nick Saban, Mark Richt and Les Miles are going after the same kids, mostly because they’ve actually won BCS games. Also, you’re going to be at an enormous disadvantage when it comes to game management. Saban coaches like a serial killer. You coach like a drunk driver. Both deadly, but one is far more efficient.

WISCONSIN BADGERS (0-1)

Stupid, stupid, stupid. That’s the reason we’re 0-1 instead of 1-0 right now. Not because we’re less talented than LSU (although that’s also true). Over the past 20 years, Wisconsin football teams have compensated for a lack of talent by being smarter and more disciplined than their opponents, and the result has been consistent success with the occasional Big Ten title thrown in for good measure. This team seems ready to buck the trend by combining a modest amount of talent with the mental capacity of a sixth grader. Sadly, there’s one person to blame, and we can’t fire him. No, not Tanner McEvoy (I’ll get to him in a second). Bret Bielema. These are his recruits, and it shows in the worst possible way. Unfortunately, the one guy with a decent head on his shoulders, Joel Stave, is sidelined indefinitely with a mysterious injury. So we’re stuck with McEasilyintercepted (I’ll come up with a better name eventually) alternating between overthrowing receivers by 20 yards and chucking the ball into the turf on 3rd and 10. I came into this season with very low expectations for McErrantpass and he has failed to meet them. I don’t want to succumb to hyperbole here, but we would have beaten LSU with Allan Evridge under center. No, I don’t care how big and fast he is, because I’m fairly certain there are at least two people reading this blog that have a better passing arm. Move him back to safety and burn the redshirt on D.J. Gillins. Not that it matters for the next three games, because the rest of our nonconference schedule is softer than Michael Sam’s penis at the Playboy mansion. Here’s hoping we can drop 60 on Western Illinois tomorrow to make me feel better.

Poop break. Back in 10-15 minutes.

ON POOPING:

Beer shits. We’ve all had them. And as bad as beer shits can be, everyone knows that the dreaded “wings and beer” shits are approximately twice as debilitating. So anyways, there I was on Tuesday after clinic, working through the wreckage of my colon in my downstairs bathroom that I thankfully don’t have to share. As I finished up however, I noticed with some alarm that my toilet paper roll was empty. “No matter” I thought to myself, “I’ll just shuffle pantsless over to the cabinet under the sink and grab another roll.” Unfortunately, as I opened the cabinet I was greeted with an unpleasant surprise: one of my roommates had borrowed my last roll. Uh oh. Now at this point, I had two unpleasant options.

A) Carefully pull up my pants and waddle to the upstairs bathroom, diligently trying not to soil my underpants

B) Use the roll of paper towels next to the sink instead

You can probably see where this is going. I picked option B. And other than a slight amount of chafing, it was working pretty well at first, that is until I stood up, crossed my fingers and flushed

“Glug… glug… clunk… hissssssss” went the toilet.

“Oh, shit” went Chode.

Thirty minutes later, after approximately a thousand unsuccessful plunging attempts and with a runny brown mixture covering most of the bathroom floor, I turned the water supply to the toilet off and fled, returning only briefly to chuck a bunch of newspapers on the vile mess that I had created. The next day, I went out and bought a toilet snake (closet auger for those of you in the plumbing business). Unfortunately, the snake was a real asshole about things and steadfastly refused to clear the offending mixture of paper towel and digested chicken meat. This left me with one recourse other than calling a plumber: lift the fucking toilet off the ground and disimpact the clogging piece of shit with a pliers. And you know what? It may have taken me most of a week but I finally got that turd out of there. I won. So let that be my lesson to you all this week: don’t ever wipe your ass with paper towels.

ON RUNNING:

In a completely unrelated story about stupid decisions, I lost all of my common sense over the summer and decided to run another half-marathon in August. Don’t ask me why. At this point, I have no one to blame but myself for forcing myself into what is becoming a more and more painful ordeal each time I lace up my running shoes. So I want to share a few bits of wisdom with you now to dissuade you from ever doing anything of a similar nature.

- First of all, you will get hurt training for a half or full marathon. It’s inevitable. And it doesn’t matter if it happens when you’re training, stumbling home from the bars or playing ultimate Frisbee, but it’s going to make running feel like the absolute worst thing in the world.
- Secondly, despite getting hurt you will continue to push on through the pain because you feel an obligation to yourself, you don’t want to be labeled a quitter, you’re raising money for charity or some other bullshit like that.
- The actual race will be a LOT longer than you expected, and during the last few miles you’ll desperately pray that some idiot hits you with his car so you can stop.
- Unfortunately, this won’t happen and you’ll finish the race, right behind some overachieving 40-year old woman.
- Soon after finishing the race, you’ll realize you need to shit. Like, RIGHT NOW.
- After limping to a toilet and shitting your guts out for a solid twenty minutes, you’ll realize wiping your ass and getting off the toilet is damn near impossible because every muscle in your legs is screaming at you. This may be the absolute rock-bottom moment of your existence.

So please, if you learn anything, ever from reading the Chode Picks, let it be this: don’t do it. Don’t ever run any race longer than a 10K. You’re welcome.

ON CHICAGO:

GREEN BAY PACKERS (7-7-1) at CHICAGO BEARS (8-7-0)

HAAAA!!!!! HAHAHAHA!!! Stupid Chicago bastards. Did you really think you had a chance at beating the AARON RODGERS-led Green Bay Packers in a fair, balanced game of football?? Well THINK AGAIN, DICKHEADS!! NOT IF ROCKET-ARM AARON AND RANDALL COBB HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT! But hey, maybe if you catch the next flight to Africa you can steal a “Chicago Bears 2013 NFC North Champions” t-shirt from some homeless Kenyan kid to make yourself feel better. And by the way, I’d like to congratulate Jay Cutler on signing a seven-year deal with Green Bay this week. Of course, this new contract requires him to wear a Bears jersey and throw interceptions in December. Keep it up Jay and you might just end up getting your jersey retired at Lambeau Field. Also, congratulations to the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions on firing their head coaches after failing to finish above .500 and conceding the division title to the Green and Gold for the third season in a row. As long as Cutler is in charge in Chicago, Rick Spielman is in charge in Minnesota and the Ford family is in charge in Detroit, our stranglehold over the NFL’s most storied division remains intact.

GREEN BAY by 5

SIDEBAR: For the first time in the long heralded and sought after “Chode Picks,” experience a pinch writer. That is correct, the great, great Chode himself deemed it “safe” for an avid fan to give their input this week. #WITNESS. For all those of you reading right now, you will now refer to me as The Crowd Pleaser, Lady Teaser, Andrew F. Graves. I will not take too much space here, but I have to get something out there that I am sure all will appreciate: Fuck Chicago, and fuck Illinois. After graduating (worst mistake ever) in May of last year, I regrettably moved to the shitty state to the south otherwise know as Illinois. As far as I am concerned, even though the Chode says that Minnesota is the worst state of all, Illinois is Minnesota’s shithead, ignorant cousin that wont leave you alone on Christmas vacation when all you want to do is open your presents and drink copious amounts of eggnog. FUCK ILLINOIS. From my experience, they are not only shitty fans, but they are the worst type of shitty fans. Let me explain; first of all, they sincerely believe that Jay “Cunt”ler will actually lead them to Superbowl glory. Please. It’s hard to hear you with our 13 world championships. Sorry Chicago, not in this lifetime, probably not in the next either. Second, regardless of if they are playing fantasy football or betting $500 on the over with their bookie, they will always root against another team, namely, the 13 time World Champion Green Bay Packers. Obviously, this can only be chalked up to jealousy…we get it, your team is not as good, never will be. Sucks to suck. If ever you take a piece of advice from anyone, this is it: DO NOT LIVE IN CHICAGO. It is a filthy city filled with dirtier people who have a massive misconception that their teams and culture are relevant. Never again will I live in a city similar to Chicago, and forever will I shout at the top of lungs while wearing my Clay Matthews jersey and flipping the double bird to The Windy City, “The Bears STILL suck.”

ON “SPACE JAM”:

MONSTARS (0-1) at TUNE SQUAD (1-0)

If you haven’t seen “Space Jam”, feel free to skip this paragraph. And shame on you. For the rest of us ‘90s kids, we all remember what was probably the worst basketball movie ever made. Michael Jordan’s second-biggest failure is now 18 years old, and it still bothers me. Some people say that technology, fast food and instant gratification have ruined the newest group of college athletes. I say that’s bullshit. It was this move that ruined our generation. More specifically, the lack of any effort put into defense or rebounding shown by Jordan and his crew. The record still shows that the Tune Squad allowed a ridiculous 154 points per 100 possessions and let the Monstars shoot an equally absurd 110% true shooting percentage. Yet somehow, they managed to pull out a victory by shooting 39-for-39 from the field, all of which came from inside the three-point line, except for Jordan’s game-winning half court dunk at the end (he traveled, by the way). Also, official Marvin the Martian made an egregious scorekeeping error by awarding the Tune Squad ten free points in the fourth quarter without any time elapsing from the game clock. So to make a long story short, the Tune Squad was one of the worst basketball teams ever to walk the face of the Earth, and the Monstars got robbed. And yes, I took the time to calculate the true shooting percentage of a cartoon team. Unfortunately, the more realistic sequel “Space Jam 2” was never sent to cinema due to LeBron James’ team-first, defensively sound performance, which led to a boring, thirty-point victory by the Looney Tunes.

MONSTARS 77, TUNE SQUAD 65 (the real score)

ON HORRIBLE OFFICIATING:

I’m sorry. It’s late Sunday afternoon and I’m just now posting the Chode Picks. This is embarrassing. But after accepting my deepest apologies, hear me out. It’s been a hell of a weekend. Want to hear about it? No? Too damn bad. I was going to try to get these out on Thursday night, but life threw me a curveball when I found out that my good buddy and longtime reader Andy Graves was back in Madison for one night and one night only. This left me with quite the conundrum, since I had class at 8 AM the next day. I was left with two choices: either go out for a few drinks, head home early and act like a responsible adult the next morning, or suck it up, pretend I’m still in undergrad, go balls-to-the-wall and show up to school smelling like cheap liquor the next afternoon. I’ll let you guess which path I chose. 
Anyways, I barely made it out of bed in time for my 2 PM blood donation appointment (because you know, I’m a good Samaritan and all that). After that, I had just enough time to take my online cardiovascular pathology quiz (aced it, by the way) and eat dinner before it was time to help my beautiful girlfriend celebrate her 21st birthday. Yes, 21st. Go ahead and make your cradle-robbing jokes now. I’ll wait.

Waiting…

Done? Good. Anyways, the next day was the Wisconsin-Purdue game here in Madison (more on that game later), so needless to say I didn’t accomplish much. So here I sit on Sunday, with the crushing hangover of a three-day bender cramping my style. And again, I’m sorry. But I don’t think you guys appreciate how hard it is for me not to come home when I’m hammered and simply write “Jay Cutler is a FAAAAAAAAAGGGG!!!” and post it on the Chode Picks.

So with that out of the way, on to college football. First and foremost, last Saturday’s game. And there’s really only one thing to be said…

Kyle French would have shanked it anyways. That’s all I have to say. About the Badgers, the Pac-12 referees, the stupid fucking Sun Devils and the travesty that went down in Tempe last Saturday night. I apologize if you’re still upset. Or if you’re French. Or if you enjoy French dressing. Or if by some bizarre stretch of my imagination, you’re Kyle French himself. I’m sorry, but this is the only way for me to cope. I’m just going to go to my not-so-happy place and imagine that Joel Stave took a knee, plain and obvious for everyone in the stadium to see, handed the ball to the ref, who then cleanly spotted it. After which of course, Stave spiked the damn ball with four seconds left as the Wisconsin field goal unit ran onto the field. Then, as the ball was snapped, with a million hearts in the collective throat of Madison, Wisconsin, placekicker Kyle French then hooked an easy field goal wide right to end the game. Wisconsin loses another heartbreaker, and I can go to sleep somewhat easily knowing that we were beaten fairly by those stupid, spoiled, sun-tanned bitches from Arizona State.

ON MY HOMETOWN:

I don’t understand why anyone between 18 and 30 years old would choose to live here. Imagine going to a bar on a Friday night where the only thing on television is the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas and re-runs of “Wheel of Fortune”. Now fill that bar with 40-something alcoholics and all of the kids that dropped out of your high school class. Now dim the lights way down so you can’t quite tell just how ugly everyone is, and load up the jukebox with shitty country songs. Welcome to Menomonie.

ON THE BEER BRACKET:

Finally, the world-famous Beer Bracket has reached its conclusion. The title game pits #1 seeds Capital Island Wheat from the Wisconsin regional against fellow #1 seed Bell’s Oberon from the domestic regional. Both are fantastic beers, so I assumed there was no way you all could possibly screw this up. But I just counted up the votes, and lo and behold, you found a way to screw it up. Island Wheat and Oberon are locked at a 5-5 tie. Way to go. Trusting you all with the Beer Bracket was the second-worst mistake I made this year, only behind forgetting to include Hoegaarden in the bracket. By the way, Hoegaarden totally would have kicked ass. It might be my new favorite beer. You know what? Fuck you all. Hoegaarden wins the Beer Bracket. HOORAY!!

ON LAWS:

WE ARE… PENN RAPE!!!

Joseph Vincent Paterno. The one man on the planet who I used to wish was coaching the Badgers, had his true colors revealed last week. As you all know by now, “Uncle Joe” was revealed to be part of the massive cover-up operation than allowed Jerry Sandusky to continue anally raping young boys for over a decade. Luckily for Paterno, God decided to give him a merciful death rather than have him face the atrocities that occurred under his nose in State College, PA. In fact, the only thing more ridiculously stupid than Paterno’s oblivious nature is the idiot Penn State students who still defend his actions. Allow me to put it in perspective. I’ve been a diehard Badger fan for as long as I can remember. I literally bleed red and white. Barry Alvarez was one of my childhood heroes. I will never forget watching him raise the Rose Bowl Championship trophies in 2000 and 2001. But if I ever found out that he had helped cover up a child abuse crime like the one that occurred in Happy Valley, I would personally walk to Camp Randall, rig up his statue with M-80s, blow it all to hell, and piss on the ashes. Some things are more important than sports. Unfortunately, there’s a simple explanation for the PSU students who feel compelled to defend Paterno: they’re idiots. I’m not terribly surprised, either. After all, we have our fair share of morons here in Madison, and I can imagine that there are even more at an academically inferior institute like Penn State.

SUPERSTAR RUNNING BACKS (0-3) vs RULES OF SOCIETY (0-3)

Damn it, Todd Gurley. I spent five weeks building you up for the Heisman, and then you go and get suspended for selling autographs like some amateur bitch. It’s not like you could have waited until June to sign a multi-million dollar contract or anything. Any day now, we’ll find out that Ameer Abdullah is a coke dealer, or keeps orphans locked in his basement, or is planning to assassinate the president while dealing coke to the orphans locked in his basement. Woah, that one got away from me. Sorry, NSA. Better wrap this paragraph up quick.

RULES OF SOCIETY by 900

ADRIAN PETERSON (0-1) vs TEXAS COURT SYSTEM (1-0)

This is what happens when you make a deal with Satan to come back from a torn ACL and win the MVP nine months later. Or rather, this is what happens when you’re a shitty father and you live in a society that puts athletes on a pedestal and allows them to act like entitled pricks with no repercussions. ‘Merica. At least my team’s players only drink codeine like Kool-Aid, pop Vicodin like Skittles and grope high school girls in hot tubs (here’s to you, Chmura!).

RANDOM JOKES:

Roses are red


Violets are glorious


Never sneak up


On Oscar Pistorius.

What do the Ravens listen to in the locker room?

Beats by Ray.

My parents went to New York on September 11, 2001 and all I got was this bloody t-shirt.

What do you call a kindergartener with no friends?


A Sandy Hook survivor.

So a muslim walks into a bar...


Nobody survives the blast

Country music is a lot like anal sex. If it’s forced upon you as a child, you won’t enjoy it as an adult.

Do you know what they call the guy who graduates last in his medical school class? Doctor.

Girls, putting a pretty shirt on over a muffin top does not make it a cupcake.

Last note before I wrap it up this week: I hope you all enjoy reading this, but you should know that it’s literally impossible for you to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed going through the years of my writings to pick the best parts.  I am fucking hilarious.

- Chode Out.