Maybe We Should Ask God First...

Sure, I was wrong about BYU staying in the MWC and my source looks about as reliable as a T-Mobile phone, but I’m glad BYU made the right decision. Too many people are bagging on BYU’s decision to go independent in football and join the WCC in every other sport. It is the right decision for the One True Team.

Look, if you are a BYU fan, you already suffer from a crippling inferiority complex, coupled with intense short man’s syndrome with a side of douchebaggery. You probably read that last sentenced and shouted “NUH!” before checking your carefully coifed hairdo. You’re BYU! The last thing you need is to continue being publicly humiliated in regional and conference play.

It must get difficult year after year to claim pre season rights to the role of BCS buster only to fall short to a decidedly better Utah, Boise State, TCU, Houston, Hawaii, Fresno State, Nevada, etc. I can only imagine the nights filled with sorrow after having to go back to your message boards and re-read all of your prophesies of the on-and-off the field superiority of your football team.

This move gives BYU fans the perfect out. From now on, they are independent, so they don’t feel obligated to defend themselves during discussions of “conference pride,” or “loyalty” or “honesty and integrity.”

BYU no longer must worry about being constantly shown up by in-state rivals. They can now continue unfettered their quest to be who they want to be: A peculiar people. Not peculiar as in “unique and treasured” but peculiar as in “unsettling weirdoes who think they are better than everyone because God loves them more and therefore they shouldn’t be constrained to mere conference play.”

Now, finally, BYU can showcase itself to the world and spread the message of poor sportsmanship and self-righteousness to the four quarters of the country. Maybe some huge conference like the Big 12 will see how superior BYU is to other mid-majors and select them to join their ol’ boys club.

BYU is now the Dungeons and Dragons nerd asking out the hot girl. He saw it work in the movies and he is sure he has more to offer than all the dumb jocks she usually dates. They are soul-mates. They belong together. He just knows she’ll say yes.

Sorry, nerds. This is the real world. You are not getting invited to the Big 12 in two years. You are one illegitimate pregnancy away from fading into obscurity.

Quiet Dignity.

The Europization of College Football

In light of the recent email scandal involving USU, BSU and Karl Benson, my sources remain assured that BYU will stay in the MWC and Utah State will join them. In other news, the following is a recent email thread discussing the future of college football:

(The names have NOT been changed in an effort to expose the not so innocent)

Chris- My solution to college football... they should have 4 BCS qualifier leagues which represent the four regions of the country. Then under each of the "super leagues" you have a tier 2 league that corresponds to each of the regions. The winner of each super league then moves on to play in the BCS championship playoff and the same thing happens with the champion of the tier 2 league. Similar to the European soccer leagues the bottom 2 teams in each of the super leagues would then be relegated (pushed down) to the 2nd tier league and the top 2 teams in the tier 2 league would then be pushed up to the top league.

I think this mode would create more interest as there would be very fun races both at the top and the bottom of conferences. This works really well in EU... any reason (other than money) that this wouldn't be a better system here?

(TBR Note: Chris is the closest thing we have on planet Earth to a traditional French Dandy. He flits around Europe on his Segway listening to his iPod in one ear, dreaming of fine chocolates, powdered wigs and musical theater. Oddly, he remains one of my closest friends. Oh, and he has a strange reaction to Asians, typically yelling something inappropriate like “Naka Naka!” when he sees a group of Japanese waitresses standing around smoking.)

Mike-Chris has been in Europe all ready too long - comparing the BEST sport in the world to soccer - child pls!!

(TBR Note: Mike is not black, but he is one of those bald-headed white guys from the Midwest who secretly wants to be black.)

Chris- While I don't refute your statement... wouldn't you enjoy seeing a Washington St getting kicked out of the PAC 10 for suckiness and seeing them replaced by a big time non-qualifier team. This would help light a fire under the Baylors, WSUs, and Dukes of the world to get their football programs together.

Doug-Permission to post this thread on TBR?

(TBR Note: Doug is the handsome and thoughtful author of TBR. He reminds most people of a high profile superhero, only with Brad Pitt’s face)

Chris-Yes, but you must also add the picture of the topless Russian woman that Michelle sent to all of you as well

(TBR note: I have not received said picture, sorry, won’t be able to post it here).

Brian- Why would school AD’s and Presidents want this?

(TBR Note: Brian is the soft spoken, high school football coach who eats children. I know, right?)

Chris- As Americans we assume that what ever we do is generally best. Its interesting to note that Soccer in EU brings in significantly more money than any other sport world wide. I believe that part of the allure is the organization (every team has the opportunity to rise to the top). I believe that this would generate more overall interest in college football and generate more revenue to grow the entire pie. The presidents and ADs of competitive programs would gain more money... you are of course correct that people who are not dedicated to winning should be scared.

Brian- How is the money going to be dished out? Will members of a conf still get a piece of the pie or is it winner take all? As well as how would scheduling work? I am all for finding a solution that would give us a true National Champion but this idea would be a massive change.

Lee- I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of Bingham as a French missionary - drinking all the local Kool-Aid, proclaiming it as international truth

(TBR Note: Lee is Mike’s little brother. Like most little brothers, Lee is a nasty little smart a** with devilish good looks and the inability to close the deal.)

Chris- I am all for massive change... Obama's healthcare plan would have worked if politicians hadn't been afraid of going after the real problems. Major change is what is needed. Money would be divided based on the league where they played. If a team like Duke loses year after year why should they have a high share of revenue. If a team like Boise continues to win why shouldn't they receive more revenue. The current system is based on socialist principles as conference bottom dwellers are continually supported by a couple teams at the top of the leagues.

I believe in taking the best from all places, mixing it together and coming up with that which is most valuable. It is akin to the beauty of taking Aggie ice cream, adding in Cache valley milk and "hand-mixing it" and getting a Village Inn shake!

Mike- all I know is that the BofM was found in the USA - and the rest of the world likes soccer/riots/need nets to sleep and not die.

Breaking BYU News

Sources close to Two Brothers Rant have confirmed that BYU will remain in the Mountain West Conference. While the details of the deal remain unknown, sources said that alterations to the television contract BYU has with the Mountain West will be made in order to accommodate a more lucrative TV deal for BYU.

Additionally, Utah State University will be invited to join fellow WAC members Nevada, Fresno State and Boise State as the 12th team in the Mountain West Conference. A 12-team conference will qualify the Mountain West to hold an annual conference championship for football.

Brigham Young University originally agreed to a deal that would move them to independent status for football and they would join the Western Athletic Conference for all other sports. League rumors claim they planned on bringing fellow MWC schools New Mexico and UNLV with them to the WAC, creating a much more powerful conference than the one Boise State left due to annual talk of poor strength of schedule.

When leaks of the deal reached offices of the Mountain West Conference, they immediately made a power play of their own, inviting at least three schools from the WAC (Nevada, Fresno, Utah State) to join the Mountain West.

Because they could not get a guarantee that the BYU deal with the WAC was done, Nevada and Fresno State decided to jump ship and join the MWC. This weakened the conference BYU was trying to create and halted their plans to move.

It is unclear whether the deal will be announced this year and go into effect for the 2011-2012 season or be pushed back another year, but sources have confirmed that this is the deal currently in place for BYU.

TBR will be a guest on The Woodshed Podcast Wednesday, August 25th to discuss these changes.

Satan's Little Grocery

I don’t ask much from you, but if this post has any effect on you at all, please share it with someone else. I’m at my wits end and I don’t know who to turn to other than you.

There is nothing I can do about Wal-Mart. Me complaining to Wal-Mart and expecting any action is about as effective as peeing into the ocean and expecting it to poison Nancy Pelosi’s drinking water.

The government tells us certain companies are simply too big to fail. I say some companies are too big to care. Wal-Mart is too big to care and the $300 a month I spend there means less to them than a mouse sneeze means to the Rocky Mountains.

When you walk into Wal-Mart, signs everywhere say things like “Back to Savings” and “Price Rollback.” The signs might as well read “Give us your money and shut your damn mouth” or “Screw you, we don’t care.”

Why doesn’t Wal-Mart drop the façade already and just give the front line geezers each a Colt .45 and a bottle of Jack? I would prefer when I walk in for the old folks to stop fake greeting me and instead pull out the gun and drunkenly shout “Stick ‘em up!”

We are being taken advantage of, people. Yet we trudge in there 24 hours a day like junkies looking for one last hit. Don’t be tricked by the “good deals.” The last civilization to be this fooled by a seemingly good deal ended up with nothing but itchy blankets and strange red bumps on their skin.

All I wanted was a stick of deodorant, a tube of toothpaste and a thing of baby powder. All I wanted was to make sure your face to face interactions with me were as pleasant for you as possible. Is that asking too much?

Since Wal-Mart hates me, they only opened three cashier stations in the entire campus. So I stood for 17 minutes as the eighth person in a twelve person deep line. All three lines were equally long and stagnant. We did not move up ONE SPOT!

All three lines were being held up by those awful “coupon club” losers. (By the way, if you are one of those people who goes to those coupon clubs and then returns to Wal-Mart to haggle with the mentally challenged cashier to save $0.27 on a box of Totinos pizza, no offense, but I want you to die.)

Not one of the cashier lines were moving. Not once did someone in some sort of manager role come out and do the right thing. It’s not brain surgery…or even cooking ramen, right? Just ask the coupon clubbers to step into a “special saver” office and then gas it. Problem solved.

Look, I’m not heartless. Coupons are great, they save money, they help families stretch the dollar, they drive competitor prices down, etc. But the lady with the REI shorts and hip glasses and Banana Republic pullover can probably afford the extra twelve cents. Her Lexus was not brand new, but I don’t care what you say, a 2009 Lexus SUV is still a reliable automobile. I sincerely hope she accidentally dips her Totinos pizza in her discounted Clorox Bleach and her stomach eats her body from the inside out.

Complaining to Wal-Mart did me no good. I was told by one old man to go see that lady over there. That lady over there told me to find someone in that area. Someone in that area told me they didn’t have the staff to open more cashier stations, even when I pointed out that that lady over there had a name tag that said “cashier”. They “understood my frustration,” but “Unfortunately, there was just absolutely nothing they could do for me”.

My eyes were opened. It finally dawned on me. I felt like an 18th century African guy who finally realized he probably wasn’t on a 10 day luxury cruise. We are slaves to Wal-Mart, and until liberal college kids from the North convince the President to come to our rescue, we will remain under our master’s watchful gaze.

Funeral For a Friend (Sort of)...

Those of you who know brother number 2 of TBR also know that he just moved to Gonzaga to start his new life as a law school student. He bought a Mac Book and a satchel bag and he is ready for public transportation. He's dating a man named Bruce.

Fitting, I think, that I should write this touching song dedicated to the life he once lead and the man he hopes to become. Click on the video for this musical masterpiece. The lyrics are found below.



Goodbye little bro
Though I never liked you as kids
You had the strength to hold the ax
When you were nine years old.
You chased me round the basement,
And you whispered it to my friends
You said you were gonna chop me up
And watch me bleed to death

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing if I would share
All of my presents
And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
You went to law school long before
Your legend ever did

Skinniness was tough
The toughest role you ever played
Junior High created a superstar
Tackle was the position you played
You topped out at eighty pounds
Everybody still laughed at you
All the people had to say
Was that Adam was 6 foot two

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing if I would share
All of my presents
And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
You went to law school long before
Your legend ever did

Goodbye Little Bro
Though I never liked you as kids
You had the courage to spike your hair
With a mullet down the back
Goodbye little bro
From the young man you looked up to all your life
Who sees more than just your red granny glasses
More than just our Little Bro

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing if I would share
All of my presents
And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
You went to law school long before
Your legend ever did

Went to law school long before
Your legend ever did

Fantasy Football Drama

With the upcoming Fantasy Football season (as well as the NFL season, I forget sometimes they are linked), I was forced to send the following email to my long time Fantasy league (I basically just copied a letter I sent to a former girlfriend and replaced some of the words):

Dear League Owners,

I wish you’d understand. I’m just an ordinary man. And I know one day you’ll see, nobody has it easy. I still can’t believe you found somebody new. But I wish you the best…I guess.

I will be joining Jimmy in the ranks of retired league owners. Until Jimmy did it last week, I didn’t realize retiring from fantasy football was something you could do. Let me state it clearly: I have decided to take my talents to South Beach.

I know what you are thinking: Much like Magic Johnson, Doug is being forced to retire early from the game he loves so much. That is true, but unlike Magic, my retirement is not the result of a brief (but deadly) venture into homosexuality.

Please consider this email my official retirement. John Stockton style, not Brett Favre style.

I just have lost track of who to cheer for every time I watch a game, and I don’t have the skill set to keep track of the waiver wire or to even really know what the waiver wire is, exactly.

Typically my season goes like this: I don’t do any research before the draft other than buy a fantasy magazine on my way to the draft. Then, in an effort to be crafty, I end up drafting crappy players with hopes they will all have surprising seasons. They never do so by game 3 I lose interest and whoever plays me gets an automatic victory because I forget to make lineup adjustments due to bye weeks.

That’s just not fair to you guys. You deserve more. You deserve a better man in your life. We are growing apart. We never talk anymore, like we did in the old days. We used to have such fun, now I feel like we’re just letting the world go on below us and we are lost in time.

It’s my fault. I was mistaken. I thought my passion for Aggie sports would translate to passion for Aggie Fantasy Football. It didn’t work, and now I’m left sitting here with nothing but memories of broken dreams and empty promises.

I’ve loved my time with this league, but I’m just not cut out for it. I’d rather spend my time waiting for another episode of the Woodshed Podcast or reading blogs about politics or swimming with Derek or overhearing one side of a phone conversation about a big business deal. Those are the memories I will cherish. The essence of you.

But those memories are my past. This is my future. I need to spread my wings. You are suffocating me. I want to be with other fantasy football people and I just feel like a traitor when I’m with them. It’s not betrayal. We never agreed on anything!

Look, let’s not pretend this was something it’s not. We were just having a good time, hooking up, whatever. But now you want me to make a commitment and I just don’t feel ready. It’s not that I don’t like you, I do, but I don’t see myself with one person forever. I’m not you; I could never be like you! I don’t want your life! My dreams are in the stars, I won’t settle for the moon.

I’m sorry. Please, don’t cry. You won’t be able to guilt me out of this decision. I feel free. I feel liberated for the first time in a long time. I know you’ll find someone new. I hope we can still be friends. I hope Mandate still happens without any awkwardness because of this. We have a lot of the same friends; it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to leave that group.

Don’t you dare look at me like that! Stop accusing me! You don’t like my actions? You don’t know where I learned all this? You want the truth? I learned it from watching you, okay? I learned it from watching you.

I didn’t want this to turn into a fight, so I am just going to say goodbye. I will always think back on our time together with a smile dancing across my lips.

Hey, we’ll always have vampires in the Denver Village Inn and topless parking lot football. Never forget me, I won’t forget you. In my dreams, you still love me and we stay together. But it’s time to wake up now. It is time to wake up.

I will always think of you guys and our time together with fondness.

With a Love that will echo across the universe,

Doug Chambers
Owner, Derek’s Bum Fetish

PS- Fall is coming and bringing with it the return of real sports, we at TBR will be posting much more frequently.

Eat. Pray. Puke.

If one more person “finds themself” I’m going to lose it. Sudden moments of profound enlightenment are freaking gay. I’m tired of life being so poignant, with that one moment where it all comes together and the faint African drums start to get louder and the tribal singing ascends to that burst of understanding and emotion. I’m sick of everyone going to Africa, India and China for answers. Those countries don’t have the answers, they just have less technology.

Facebooking everybody about your spiritual journey is not the best first step. Tweeting your every move makes you uninteresting. Blogging your innermost thoughts and rants is basically telling the world, “Hey! Look at me! I need you to validate my existence!”

Do you want enlightenment?

The next time you look in the mirror and see a unique and special butterfly just emerging from her cocoon, remember this: It’s all been done.

They have stores dedicated to your one-of-a-kind look. Your “personal statement of style” is mass produced by skinny Chinese kids clinging to life for one more week. You want to go to China to find yourself? Pick up some outfits on discount while you’re there.

Oh, you’re in a band? You play underground music that the mainstream just isn’t ready for? Wow, that is super legit. Guess who else does that? 3 billion other nerds.

Your philosophies on the meaning of life are not yours; you stole them and are now trying to pass them off as unique. Nietzsche, Voltaire, Hobbes, Jesus, Plato, Socrates, Confucius and the rest all said it better than you ever will. Please stop trying to play it off as an original thought.

Speaking of Confucius, would liberals, hippies and hipsters please stop claiming him? The guy ran a school whose foundation was the teaching that government should be run only by men of high moral standing. None of this “his personal life doesn’t matter” bull crap.

To be fair to the left, though, the right needs to back off their assurance that Jesus would be on their side. I mean, I know saying stuff about selling all you have and giving it to the poor is pretty vague…but it seems he was less concerned about personal wealth. You never know. My gut tells me that if someone were to ask Jesus what side he takes when it comes to politics, he would probably respond with something silly like, “My Father’s side.”

Quit trying to find yourself. You aren’t even looking in the right place. Conforming to the standards of any group, whether it is conformist society or non-conformist group, is still conformity. People conform for one reason: security. To make them feel there are other weirdoes just like them out there. It doesn’t help them find themselves; it helps them lose themselves to the comfort of community. It helps fight off the loneliness.