Coming at you live from CTU

I've noticed a disturbing trend on Fox that doesn't involve skating with the Dave Coulier.

First, you have to understand that everyone on American Idol is a character filling a certain role. You have the southern blond with a country drawl who makes it to the top five (Kelly, Carrie, there's two or three this year). You have the poster child for non-threatening boys magazine who sings somewhat stilted love songs (Justin, Clay, that weenie little kid in this year's competition). You have the awkward guy who's there for comic relief until the final month starts (George Huff, this year it's the gray haired 40-year-old spastic guy).

My problem is this -- I jsut realized that Fox hasn't just been showing American Idol three nights a week. They've got it on Monday nights too. 24 and American Idol are the same show.

Consider:

1 -- Each week, a lot of people die. On 24, it's usually five or six people, but only one whose name you knew. On Idol, it's four people (you say voted off, I say die) but only one of whom you'll remember next week.

2 -- Each week, the show reminds you that the American public is doomed. If CTU fails, toxic gas will destroy all life as we know it. If we don't vote, that girl who sounds like Macy Gray will win and destroy all life as we know it.

3 -- The president in 24 and Simon Cowell's lines are almost interchangeable. "You're all working against me." "I made a mistake -- You're just not good enough for thsi job." "I feel like I'm in a Mexican karaoke bar."

4 -- Both shows have the woman you're supposed to like but you really don't (Audrey, Paula Abdul) and the bad guy that's smarter than everyone (The Chechnyans and whichever contestant lasts eight weeks longer than she should) and the chubby guy who says things that make no sense (Edgar vs Randy Jackson.)

But here's the real clincher -- Ryan Seacrest and Jack Bauer are the same person. Each does the majority of the killing each week (Seacrest is the one who puts the losers down for good). Each one keeps the plot moving along, even when all the other characters stall in their individual stories. Each one is a skilled torturer (Seacrest's monologues are banned at Guantanamo under the Geneva convention). And they both seem to have that same "I'm balding but not really" haircut.

So here's the point -- I think next year, Fox is going to allow all of us to vote our least favorite characters off of their shows to replicate Idol's success. CTU's Chloe is gone as soon as I get the chance. If you think Meg should be off Family Guy, your cell phone can pull out the eraser. If you think the War at Home would be better without ... ah hell, someone would have to watch that show before they could start voting people off it.

But why stop there? After all, aren't the NFLers on Fox during autumn Sunday's just new characters? You've never seen real people do things like throw a 50-yard pass or slam a 280-pound RB or stand near Tony Siragusa, have you? So why not vote off those characters too? Can't we boot Greg Lewis after he drops yet another pass? Wouldn't we all be happier without having to see Jeremy Shockey's gaping maw?

So be ready for it. Did I say this was a distrubing trend? I meant awesome. I get those confused sometimes.

Leftover Super Bowl posts

A few odds and ends I didn't get to share with y'all:

** I know he won, but Ben Roethlisberger managed a whopping 22.6 QB rating for the Super Bowl, which is beyond terrible. As we've established, if you go outside right now and throw a football into the ground your QB rating would be 39.6. So Ben was a little better than half as good a QB as you were that Sunday.
For the record, in Super Bowl XII Broncos QB Craig Morton threw four completions for 39 yards and four interceptions for 46 yards in a loss, achieving the lowest QB rating ever in the bowl, a 0.000000.

** In case you were still under the delusion that everything in the NFL isn't rigged, consider: The Super Bowl MVP, the guy who gets invited to Disneyworld after the game, was Hines Ward, who just happens to have a tattoo on his arm of Mickey Mouse striking the Heisman pose. Right, he just happened to be the best player on the field. Sure he was.

** Did you see the commercial where the skinny white guy lays out a sorority girl in a game of flag football? He's the Eagles starting weak side linebacker next season. As long as the Cowboys decide to start Katie Holmes at WR, we're cool.

** Only 55 days to the draft. NFLDraft Forecast has the Eagles taking North Carolina State's TE T.J. Williams with the 216th pick (seventh round), but if New Mexico CB Gabriel Fullbright is still on the board I'd hate to see him slip by. Oh yeah, I'm serious. You get some great players in the seventh round. Who can forget what DT Kenyota Marshall brough to the birds last year? (One game, one tackle assist. It was the first Dallas game, and thanks for asking.)

Sad, leaderless cow

For archive purposes, I'm putting some of the Cowboys anagram insults from last season's weekly football recaps. Hopefully the knowledge therein will embiggen your mind, and clearly illustrate the evil that lurks inside every Dallas player (and fan).
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"Dallas Cowboys' Drew Bledsoe" clearly spells out:
** Body blow! Sad, leaderless cow.

Cheap-shot artist "Safety Roy Williams" rearranged spells out:
** Aims fist low yearly

"Dallas Cowboys starting wide receiver Terry Glenn" predicts:
** Ball error cedes TD, Eagles win it on TV. We grin, say “Cry!”

Perennial loser "Starting receiver Keyshawn Johnson" untangled is:
** Jokes, thin anger: He craves wins? No try.

Unreliable “Dallas Cowboys Kicker Jose A. Cortez” rearranged is:
** Cocky CA jerk boots a low-sized laser

“Troy U./Cowboys linebacker DeMarcus Ware” clearly spells out:
** Real sorry, way dumb con, twice coke abuser **

Mr. Not Across the Middle “Jason Whitten” untangled is:
** “Not in the jaws!”

"Michael Irvin" is either:
** I evil rich man, or
** Evil chain rim

“The faithful Dallas Cowboy fans” clearly spells out:
** Alas, they club fish flat and woof

“Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones” rearranged shows that:
** Ay, jolly son w/ jarred bones cowers

“Dallas Cowboys cornerback Anthony Daniel Henry” spells out:
** Another inbred, owly con w/ crack. Handy? Barely. A loss.

And finally....
“A postseason for the Cowboys?" Clearly, the letters don't lie.
** Nope, hate to say. Sob for cows.

Here's the idea

You all know how this works: Every Wednesday during football season, when my rage is at its peak, I e-mail all y'all a few good Jake Plummer insults and a handful of bizarre stats in an attempt to stop the choking as my brain once again tries to escape down my throat. It's theraputic. My brain stays put, my gorge descends and I buy one more week of partial sanity.

But here's the problem: Many of you think it's funny. Some of you asked if I'd do something for the playoffs. Some of you have even encouraged me that I do something more with all this divine inspiration. So this site is all your fault.

We're gonna see exactly how funny my baseless and boundless rage is. Every Wednesday, right here, I will post something funny. It might be football stats, it might be the number of nails it took me to hang a picture in the house, it might be a picture of G as the Incredible Hulk impaling Cowboys players, it might be knock-knock jokes.

It might be funny ha ha. It might be funny "the milk went bad" funny. If I get desparate I might post the words "something funny" in such a way that they look like the Mona Lisa.

We'll see where this goes. I've got pretty low expectations, but who knows. Maybe I'll get something funny up here once and a while. Maybe we'll expand it to "Something funny every Wednesday and a reason to hate Dallas every Friday." Maybe we'll do all the football postings here from now on.

The point is this: Visit this site next Wednesday, because by then I will have posted funny here. Why Wednesday? Because you can't spell Wednesday without "dead newsy." And that's comedy.

(For the record, this week's funny thing is the picture of G. That's quality stuff right there.)

Everyone has a blog

But no one can come up with a better word than "blog." That's a crying shame. It's also a shame if you couldn't figure out this was a test posting. But who am I to judge? The captain, that's who.