Cook 'em Dan-O

Bowl Mania

This just in from the We Couldn't Make This Up If We Tried department…

Remember when the Orange Bowl was called the Orange Bowl? And not the Tostito's Meineke Chick-fil-A GoDaddy.com Orange Bowl presented by Hardy's? Yeah, me neither. But just for fun, here's a listing of this season's bowl games, deconstructed. I've separated the bowl sponsor name from the bowl name (many no longer have a distinct name) and scrambled the order. So see if you can correctly match them up! Or just click the "I Don't Care" button and have another glass of champagne. Be careful, there are some ringers in each column!

Sponsor	Bowl Name
Auto Zone	Orange
Meineke Care Care	Sugar
Chic-fil-A	Bluebonnet
Hyundai	Sun
Allstate	Holiday
GoDaddy.com	Rose
Tostitos	Cotton
Capital One	Alamo
Progressive	Liberty
Outback	Fiesta
TicketCity	Gator
BBVA Compass	(blank)
Kraft Fight Hunger	Independence
Beef 'O' Brady	Humanitarian
New Mexico	Poinsettia
Champs Sports	Las Vegas
MAACO	Insight
Little Caesar's	Music City
AdvoCare V100	Armed Forces
Sheraton	Pinstripe
uDrove	Texas
Bell Helicopter	Military
New Era	New Orleans
Valero	Emerald
Franklin American Mortgage	St. Petersburg
Bridgepoint Education	Hawaii
R&L Carriers	BCS National Championship Game
Northrup Grumman	Student-Athlete

It Takes a Big Man...

Stuff I Was Wrong About

• WMD's
• Iraq's political stability after the fall of Sadam Hussein
• The integrity of a couple of executives
• Enron's role in the California energy crisis
• The staying power of South Park
• The safety of the Space Shuttle
• Bush=Gore
• What was "juiced" in baseball
• Where the fish would be hiding

Stuff I Was Right About

• Multimedia and the timing of "voice-data convergence"
• Al Davis' motivations
• The .com bubble
• The safety of the Space Shuttle
• The RIAA's inability to prevent illegal music downloads
• Joe Montana's touchdown pass to John Taylor in Super Bowl XXVII

And Another Thing (Baseball Edition)

Yes, it's been a long time.  Hey, I've been busy OK?  Lots of stuff in development, but you'll just have to wait.  But this stuff, I just have to get it off my chest so I can move on to stuff that Really Matters.

• Opening Day.  When was opening day in baseball this year? And do we add or subtract a day for crossing the international dateline to play in Japan?  Hey, I'm all for playing an exhibition in Japan (once the owners were made to cough up salary for the non-playing personnel--what, were they just supposed to commute?).  That's not my beef.  No, I want to know when I missed the memo.  You know, the one that says the Cincinnati Reds will no longer play the first game on Opening Day... like they have for a hundred years before Marge Schott got a hold of the team.  Whose bright idea was that?
• The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  I've got no problem with artistic license when it comes to linking the team and the city.  After all, no one cares that the New York (Football) Giants and Jets play in New Jersey.  But come on!  First of all, this is an insult to the original Los Angeles Angels (of Los Angeles).  Yeah, they stank (think, the LA Clippers of baseball) but they gave you someone to root for if you didn't care for the Dodgers.  And I realize that for many people "Los Angeles" and "Southern California" (aka "the southland") are synonymous... Kind of like those New Yorker posters that showed a map of the US consisting of New York, a tiny tower about Chicago's distance, and then "LA".  But any Angeleno would scoff at the idea of confusing Anaheim with Los Angeles.  The "Big A" (brought to you by whoever bought the naming rights) is at least three freeway interchanges from anywhere in Los Angeles proper, so ipso facto it can't be in Los Angeles.  But I know why they came up with this name:  ESPN.  And specifically, ESPN's use of three-letter abbreviations when showing the box score on the "crawl" during their telecasts.  That's when the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim--LAAOA--become the Los Angeles Angels, LAA.  Suddenly, they've left their suburban past behind! A new stadium can't be far behind!  I say, call them the Angels of Anaheim:  AOA.  It conjures up images of KOA Kampgrounds (no, they're not German.  Someone thought camping in a dirt lot would seem more quaint if they spelled "campground" with a "k".) and AAA, who you'll need to call when you run out of gas idling on the Golden State Freeway in the post-game traffic jam.
• Jose Canseco.  Andy Warhol said something about how we all get our fifteen minutes of fame, and I'm trying to find out whose fifteen minutes Jose is stealing--again.  If Jose's original kiss-and-tell book on steroid use in baseball helped lead to cleaning up the sport, then good for him.  But what's with the "oops, I forgot to mention so and so" follow up book?  Jose now thinks he's a national hero and we should all rush out and buy his new book... come on!  This is the guy that let a fly ball bounce off his head and into the stands for a ground rule double instead of an out.  Worse, this is the guy who asked to pitch as a reliever, got shelled (no surprise there) and injured his shoulder in the process!  What kind of judgment does that represent?  To paraphrase the saying, "how can we miss you if you won't go away?"

Jumping the Shark Bowl

On this day after the Iowa Caucuses, when the seers, media, and other talking heads (with apologies to the Talking Heads) try to divine the meaning of Obama and Huckabee victories... And I'm sorry, I just can't vote for Mike Huckabee as my President--I can't envision "President Huckabee".

Yes, on this day I choose to discuss another weighty matter--what's wrong with college football bowl games.  This isn't a post about the need for a playoff system (no matter how much order that would introduce into college football betting).  No, I have a more mundane issue--when did we give up any semblance of independence from corporate sponsorships?

I'll admit I'm a bit of a traditionalist on this.  I liked the Rose Bowl Pac 10-Big 10 (plus or minus) matchup just fine, thank you.  But I was willing to change with the times; it was kind of fun to talk about the Poulan Weedeater Citrus Bowl.

But this year, I saw few Oranges, Astro-Bluebonnets, Fiesta's, Sugar's or any other "independent" bowls.  Instead, it was the Outback Bowl, Insight Bowl, Emerald Bowl (apparently for the nut, not the color of SF Bay... of course, after that oil spill it wasn't emerald anyway).  There may have even been a dot-com bowl in there somewhere [wait! an infusion of capital! let's blow it on a bowl sponsorship!].

I say that this crass commercialism, together with the sheer number of games (there's probably a Web 2.0 company right now helping us organize them all for viewing), not to mention the lack of exciting play (for any but alumni) all points to a "jumping the shark" moment for college football.

Time to focus on lacrosse!