With the first pick in the 2013 NFL draft

Nobody Likes a Jerk selects...he'll it doesn't really matter who I selected. He's either going to be labeled a savoir or a washout depending on how the rest of the team plays behind him.

I took my one and only break from baseball season this weekend to catch a little of the NFL draft. It didn't hurt that the Mets had an awful series against the Phillies, so that freed up my schedule a bit. It also didn't hurt that the Jets had two picks in the first 15.

The draft used to be appointment viewing with Chris Burman and Mel Kipper going at it for 8 hours on a Saturday afternoon. Depending on which side of the coin you're on, that has now been reduced to 2 hours on Thursday night, 2 hours on Friday night, and some time on Saturday where no one is really watching unless you have a Geno Smith or Brady Quinn type in the Green Room beyond the first round. 

Speaking of Mr. Smith, those Jets drafted him in the 2nd round and I'm happy. He's a very athletic quarterback who has a strong arm and big legs. He kind of reminds me of Tim Tebow only with out the Christ complex and with an actual working arm. Mr. Tebow was released this morning by the team which brings the number of QB's on the roster down to a manageable 5 (there's a lot of sarcasm here). Actually if the team is really interested in teaching Smith and grooming him to be the QB of the future then put him down as the 3rd on the depth chart behind starter Mark Sanchez and back up David Gerrard and let him hold the clipboard this season and learn. We are not going anywhere and can put up with another season of Sanchez.

But all this talk of players and strategy takes me off the point I was trying to make here today. Did you watch the draft? Did you see the tables where each team's staff was huddled around just before making each pick? Did you notice something out of place on those tables? If you said "A Bottle of Gatorade", you would be correct! 

One of the NFL's biggest sponsors made sure to have their products placed in a high-eyeball area during the draft. While that's great for the world of product placement, does anybody care that a sports drink was being featured in an environment where there were more neck ties than score ties?

The Draft has it's fair share of corporate sponsors this year. Ad Age points out that among them are Visa, Verizon, and other companies that don't even have V's in their names. (http://adage.com/article/news/nfl-turned-draft-mcrib-sporting-events/241141/) But why was Gatorade the only one featured up on the tables? Did other companies just not give as much? What a great tie-in Visa could have had if each team went up to congratulate their newest acquisition and handed him a pre-paid Visa card with his signing bonus already loaded up!

I get that this is a prime time event with lots of the coveted "Males 24-40" demographic tuning in but I don't think that calls for this much of an insult to "our" collective intelligence. Do you think we don't know what Gatorade is? We've grown up with the "Be Like Mike" campaign and the 1986 Giants starting the Gatorade showers. We get it. What we don't get is why?  When I'm in the office and the pressure is on. Do you know what I reach for? If you said a big bottle of lemon-lime G2, you'd be wrong....coincidentally if you said whiskey, you'd be right! 

That's it! The 2014 NFL draft brought to you by Jack Daniels and Lazy Boy!

Not Getting All the Juice I Paid For

I was going to launch this week’s opening salvo at the woman next to me on the Metro this morning who was chomping her gum and then sucking on it and then pop-ing it. Furthermore I won’t go into the fact that she was chewing spearmint gum at 7am...what the hell are you eating/drinking/not brushing your teeth that you have to chew mint gum that early in the morning? But I’m not going into that or her as promised.

However I will launch today’s opening at the nice folks at The Tropicana Juice Company. My wife recently brought home a container of your new “Trop 50” product. At first I was very excited to try this new juice which claims that it has “The goodness of orange juice with 50% less sugar and calories.” Wow! I can’t wait to try this.

From the first sip I noticed something wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The taste said “orange” but the consistency was a little to thin. It was almost as if somebody took a container of juice, poured out half and then refilled the bottle with water. I’d better have a look at the side of the juice carton:


Wha...wha...what????

Does that Trop50 on the left say “42% juice”? But I thought this was supposed to be orange juice, not “orange drink”?

Well evidently I was wrong. So the nice folks over at Tropicana have their founder Tony Rossi rolling over his watery grave (less calories in him too). Looks like my initial tastes were correct. Cut out 48% of the juice and add water...sounds nutritious to me.

Somebody has to explain to me how you can still get the same amount of vitamins in this water cut stuff then you do in the real OJ? You don’t get the same amount? Are you sure? You get half? Oh and it costs the same as regular orange juice? Damn!

Just to be clear here diet conscious readers. I understand the desire to cut your caloric intake but real OJ is made from natural sugars and sweetening. The calories in there are actually “good”. If you believe that this Trop50 is going to cut it for you then why don’t you go ahead and add water to your beer. Oh wait, that’s Michelob Ultra. Ok but you can add water to your Gatorade...nope...that’s G2.

Listen up marketers....stop trying to run this game on us. While I do understand that there is a percentage of this country’s population that will fall for this trick. I won’t...do you hear me! No Fake Birth Certificates and No Fake Orange Juice.

Gatorade in the Stands, Racists Under Center, and Panhandling

Welcome back dear readers (and deer readers too...I loved you in Bambi). The changes are still being finished up (including those to better the content of the site) but in the meantime the posting needs to continue so here we go with today’s list of things that bother, irk, pester, vex, and generally amuse me.

We start today with football . While at the Jets game this past Sunday I found that the vendors were hawking the usual delectable goodies, beer, beer, beer, hotdogs, beer, and beer. But wait; is that guy over there selling what I think he is? Is that Gatorade? Yes...yes it is. But why? Did the team order too much for the players on the field to use before it went bad and they’re trying to make some of their money back on the purchase? Not likely. Are they fans in the stands subject to extreme heat that could cause them to dehydrate and pass out and desperately need the extra electrolytes provided by the sugary-sweet beverage? Not when it was about 45 degrees at gametime. Oh...it must be because the fans are so rabid that they are jumping up and down at a frenzied pace to equivalize their efforts to that of a marathon runner....humm...that doesn’t seem to be the case either. Instead, I offer the fact that people have become so addicted to the sweetness and the perceived benefits of drinking sports drinks of any kind that it has become akin to soda. Truth be told, you can do just as well drinking water when it comes to moderate athletic activity (30 min and less). I also think that the vending companies could do much better business in the late fall and winter (in the cold parts of the US) by selling cup-of-soup. Just think you could have the beer guy pass the cream of mushroom guy in the isles and people would like up at the concession stand to grab a hot dog and a chicken-noodle or even split pea. Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time to buy stock in Campbell’s.

Continuing on the football discussion it seems that not everybody in the county is a big fan of our President-elect. Not a surprise as he didn’t gain 100% of the votes. But this story just came across my desk about the back up center for the University of Texas football team, Buck Burnette. On election night Mr. Burnette posted a message on his Facebook Page: “all the hunters gather up, we have a n[#$%&]er in the whitehouse”. Only he didn’t edit that one word. Either way word got to UT head coach Mack Brown who gave Burnette the old heave-ho off the team. In Burnette’s defense, he did post an apology after taking down the quote the next day. Here we go...the kid is only 20 years old from a small town in Texas. His actions were stupid and yet another example of people not getting that FACEBOOK is seen by everybody and nothing you post is ever “private”. Does he deserve to be kicked off the team for the remainder of this season? Yes. However, he should have the opportunity to compete for a slot next season (he’s only a sophomore) but first he needs to issue an apology (in person) to all of his teammates for his comments and letting them down. There are posts out there that argue he should only be suspended for a game or two. I have to disagree as this is the kind of thing that can divide a locker room full of players from all sorts of backgrounds, especially when that team is still in the hunt for the National Championship. It really doesn’t matter what happens because it’s doubtful this kid will come back to play at UT. More then likely he’ll have to transfer to a new campus because of all the pressure and dirty looks he’ll encounter for as long as he stays at UT. My only suggestion as to new locals is for Mr. Burnette to avoid Furman and Grambling...just to be safe.

The one offensive formation that no football team has ever tried is the “Panhandle”, perhaps that’s because it’s hard to beg the defensive team for some change and possibly a touchdown...besides those pants are tight, where would they keep their quarters? I’m reminded of this because of a guy I passed on my way back from lunch with just a cup out in front of him shaking it. What made this the universal sign for “spare some change?”? Is the “ask” (as Mrs. Bloggerman says) different in other countries? I’m not sure and I’m not sure if you really care. I was also interested in the origin of the term “panhandle” and came across this on Yahoo Answers:

"Panhandler" is said to derive from the Spanish "pan", meaning both bread and money (just as the American slang "bread" does today). But though it is supposed to have been first recorded in 1890, the earliest quotation I am able to find for it is in the humorist George Ade's 'Doc Horne'(1899): " He had 'sized' the hustler for a 'panhandler' from the very start". However, the fact that Ade put the word in quotation marks probably indicates that he did not invent it, as has often been claimed. QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins By Robert Hendrickson

Whatever the origin of the term...they do have some great signs (follow this link to DevineCaroline.com’s pictures of the best signs posted). Here are a few of them: