Shanahaned (verb) – “The act of a professional football team calling a play or creating a gameplan that seemingly does everything in its power to deter your fantasy football team from succeeding.”

The word is derived from Mike Shanhan, the Denver Broncos Head Coach, who would use a platoon of running backs on his offense and the player, which you most likely played in your starting lineup, would see no carries.

This year’s examples: Baltimore RB back field, random white guy backup tight ends, FB handoffs on 1st and goal from the 1.

Just in case anyone doubted my truthfulness of being published in the Sports & Leisure publication from western/upstate New York, there is a short mention of my article on the webpage. A little more then half way down the page.

Miller ready to lead Rush-Henrietta for one last season (Rochester edition)
By Casey Fenton
Dane Miller has looked the part of a basketball player since eighth grade. His broad shoulders and tall, commanding presence on the court drew the attention of his current coach, Chris Reed, even then.
“He looked like a player from the second we saw him,” Reed said. “[I] could tell from just the way he moved.”

Just received a facebook event invite, “FACEBOOK BLACKOUT.” Apparently, their plan is on December 15th for nobody to login to Facebook. What cause could this possibly be for? Because they dislike the recent redesign and layout changes.

Let’s not even touch on how moronic a cause this is to fight for. Sure, you use this website but you don’t keep the site running. Advertising dollars keep the site running. You can say that without you, there’d be no advertising dollars, but there are plenty of people who tolerate and even ENJOY the new design.

But the fact that it is a one day blackout, why would this encourage Facebook to listen to your reasoning at all? They all know you’ll be back TOMORROW. If anything, be back more to makeup for the day you missed.

It’s the same type of cause as when gas prices were higher, everybody said they were going to not fill up their gas for one day. OH NO. You know what happens if you don’t fill up gas for a day? You fill up the next freaking day.

If you really want to make a difference on Facebook, cancel your account. If you really want to make a difference on gasoline, ride a bike.

If you’re a smoker, you’re still a smoker in between cigarettes. You haven’t quit just because there isn’t rolled up nicotine in your  mouth at that second. To make a true difference you have to alter your activities for life. Not just 24 hours.

Good amount of things been happening in my life recently, so rather then go into a long detailed paragraph discussion of them I’ll just post them in a random bulleted order. Here we go…

• Heartbreaking loss for the Bills on Monday Night, glad I went though. Still a great game.
• Emmitt Smith is a funny guy off camera.
• Merrill Hodge is kind of a dick off camera.
• Suzy Kolber is pretty cute all the time.
• Fallout 3 is simultaneously a fun game and a frustrating snooze fest.
• First snow of the season, love it.
• Getting a new Verizon phone, Venus or something it’s called. I forget. It looks decent though.
• Merrill Hodge is kind of a dick on camera.
• I’ll probably be playing World of Warcraft again, sad.
• The new XBOX Experience is pretty awesome.
• Why do all the avatars have to stand so feminine?
• I wish NetFlix provided a wider range of streaming media.
• I’m pretty sick of making peppermint mocha twists.
• I’m pretty sick of having to ask you twice what size you would like.
• I’m pretty hungry for Thanksgiving.
• That doesn’t mean that I won’t eat until then though.
• I probably just won’t enjoy the meals as much until then.
• Lots of half ideas floating around for UpSTATE.
• We’ll hopefully have some more videos up in the next few weeks.
• Happy Day After Birthday to Casey Marquis.

If anyone happens to live in the Western/Upstate NY area, pickup a copy of Sports & Leisure Magazine. Inside you’ll find my first article contribution. It’s a feature on Rush-Henrietta’s basketball prospect Dane Miller.

Donovon McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles admits he didn’t know that there were ties in the NFL. And they say QB is the smartest position.

The initial video for my latest venture, UpSTATE, is now online for viewing.

I urge everyone to go and view it ASAP. Or I will kill this kitten. I know you can’t see it but trust me, there is one here.

As a recovering MMORPG addict myself, I found this news pretty disheartening for the biggest population of online gamers: The Chinese.

The Chinese Government has decided to begin taxing virtual purchases made with real currency. As in, if a player purchased 1000 gold in World of Warcraft, they would have to fork up extra yuan for that government to get a piece of the pie.

Economically it’s a forward thinking idea for the government and it’ll bring in a ton of increased revenue for how large this sector of gaming is commercially, but at the same time this could set a dangerous precident of taxing intangible items. Either way, I’m glad I’m not playing these games anymore and I’m glad I’m not Chinese.

Somebody just finally named it:

belaired

When a person begins to speak about a subject and then works in the lyrics to a certain theme song, the origins of the term originate in West Philadelphia where I was born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days, chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool and all shootin’ some b-ball outside the school when a couple of guys who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood. Got in one little fight and my mom got scared, said you’re moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Belair.

Tonight’s events, combined with a discussion with Dean, and sprinkled with a heartbreaking result as made me take a deep, long look at one of the world’s cruel mistresses… Hype.

The eager anticipation of an event is healthy and should be encouraged. It gives people positive endorphins to get through rough patches of their lives and something to look forward to down the road. Now, don’t mistake my words for saying people should always be looking ahead and not living in the present, etc. That’s a discussion for another time and another place.

I’m speaking solely on the level of anticipation. It is fueled by others who have experienced the event in a positive way. Their intentions are pure, they want you to also get the positive reaction they had, but by over-doing it and speaking with such overzealous adjectives as “unbelievable,”"life-altering,” or “orgasmic,” is unfair to the person.

There are very few things in this world that are as good as advertised. Why is that? Because if it was really that good there wouldn’t need to be publicity for it. It would become a necessity of life and people would just know their lives were incomplete without it. There are very few things out there that are above hype. That don’t need to be paraded around, talked up, put on a pedistal, celebrated, shouted from the rooftops… Things that just exist, are used by all, and enjoyed by all. These are the truly essential items that should be applauded. What are those things? I don’t know.

Maybe socks.

Which is the Better Pre-Teen Baseball Movie?

Is it Rookie of the Year, where a kid breaks his arm and then has his arm healed strangely so he can suddenly throw a super fast fastball and the Cubs try to win the pennant?

Or is it Little Big League where a kid’s grandfather leaves the Minnesota Twins to him in his will and then he names himself the manager?

Both have the right amount of lessons, unbelievable unrealistic scenarios and mom dating a baseball player.

If I had to pick though, I’d go Little Big League because of the star power with Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr.  at the end.

Despite the stereotype of these big greedy corporations getting the recent government bailout, their bankruptcies have a lot of collateral damage as well. This article from the USA Today a few weeks ago really touches on that, gives you a different perspective on things.

Article found through Penny-Arcade.

To say that this game against New England is a big game for Buffalo is an understatement. A loss here puts us three straight and 0-3 in the division. With the entire AFC East seperated by a single game, these type of tiebreakers are crucial.

Don Banks, whose articles I always enjoy, has a good write up on what this game means to Buffalo. I have faith in Dick Jauron and I think that this team is different then the other teams that have lost seven straight and 14 out of the last 15.

Also in Bills news, got my two tickets for the Monday Night game against Cleveland on Nov 17th. My cousin Evan and I are going. Going to be SWEET.

With so much hope and excitement around this candidate then any other in my lifetime, will the country survive the inevitable disappointments that come with any presidency?

Ah screw it, just cheer for now.