How to light your kitchen on fire

My eyes still sting a little. My fingers are shaking, but not a whole lot. What's primarily on my mind at this time is imaginative ways to clean a bubbling ceiling.
So the low down, then. Being the creative culinary experts that we are, Jess and I decided tonight that we'd take a crack at making some crumbed calamari.

Things got off to an inauspicious start; our batter mix was overpriced for what was essentially just flour and crumbs, and it told us to just add water... not how much water or anything, but just add water. At one point in the night, I added water to something. The results were interesting.

First of all, let me heartily advise anyone against cooking at 11 at night. It sounds all fun and adventurous; late-night cookin' over a hot stove followed by some serious Baywatch and maybe even a little drunken session of Wii Fit (as long as nobody jumped on my balance board!)
Anyhow, with our crumbs all mixed with spices and some chips in the oven, all that was left was for the pot full of boiling oil to get ready. Various Youtube videos suggested 20 minutes (yes, we are learning to cook through Youtube). So I left Jess to her own devices while I chatted with Jana on the phone. What were we talking about at the time? Oh yeah, dad had had some luck on the recent lotto draw, and Jess was hoping Jana could get something for us on eBay. It was all innocuous enough, until Jess told me in a firm voice that she needed me.

Generally, such a tone of voice meant that there was a cockroach about, but somehow at the time, I kinda figured that it was more likely something to do with that pot full of volatile liquid. ...That pot full of volatile liquid, that now appeared to be on fire.
I (rather casually) told Jana that I had to go, and then watched with keen interest for a couple seconds, pondering how to solve this scenario. I reached out to grab the handle, but that flame was licking about under the lid fairly wildly, and as you can imagine as time went on things were only getting worse. I snatched it up (thank god the handle hadn't heated at all) and threw it in the sink.

At this time, I was a smidgen confused - why was it that when I threw it in the sink, the fire appeared to be getting bigger? Who cares, I knew how to solve this - through use of my neglected buddy Blastoise, I was aware that water could definitely quelch a fire.
So I turned the tap on, and it happened. WHOOSH. The whole sink is up in flames. By this point, there are certain things running through your mind. My second thought was, 'well shit, I'm not going to be able to put this out' - Jess' house may not survive the night. But, honest to god, my first thought was 'WHY DID WATER MAKE THE FIRE BIGGER?'
...I'm a much more scientifically aware human being now, having discovered that water aggravates the oil. I mean hey, water being poured all over me would piss me off too, but damn man, the fire had engulfed the entire sink, and was nearing the ceiling - get over it, oil!

I had concluded by this point that water wasn't working so great, and my mind was now turning to thoughts of evacuating (but not before saving my Wii!), when all of a sudden it was gone. This all progressed very quickly of course, but I am not exaggerating when I tell you that in another couple seconds, the whole kitchen is up in flames.

So our Blastoise-powered tap had put the fire out (after having a little bitchfight with the oil), and we were safe. Now Jess was up on a chair, plucking the battery from the smoke detector because the noise annoyed the hell out of her. With that out of the way, a few fans were turned on, doors and windows open, and yeah.
Considering that the whole house could have been burnt down and that in the split-second after I turned the tap on the flames hadn't taken my hand off, I'm pretty pleased with how the evening went. The state of the ceiling, however? Not so grand. The paint is bubbling, and there are some nasty-ass stains that I reckon will require professionals.

So yeah. That was our wee little cooking adventure. The upsetting part now? We have barely any oil left to make the damn calamari with. Ultimate fail.

Our gorgeous redecorating
Ain't she a beaut?
Love the bubbles
Partially melted rubbish bag
Best calamari ever!!

Jewell at 11

There are a great many things in this life that I hate. I hate mushrooms. I hate failure. I hate seeing idiocy being rewarded. But at this moment in time, there is nothing I hate more than Jewell at 11.

After spending an evening with my uni posse having a merry old time, I tragically had to nip off in order to get back to Rosanna by train. It was 10:30 pm. In case you weren't aware, tonight (November 22nd) was a night of heavy rain. I walked through the twilight streets, wind whipping the drops into my eye, as I trudged down the dark, dangerous alleyways. My shoes are worn out at the sole, and my feet are drenched. Socks that were meant to keep my feet warm are instead a damp wrapping of water, chilling me to the core. The only sound is the rain hitting the pavement, my shoes squelching with each step, and the building melody of Rhapsody in Blue playing on my iPod.

The walk back to Jewell station seems longer than I remember the first trip being. I turn blindly into an alley that I know will put me in the right direction. No more bright lights now. Just me, the walls on each side and the train track ahead. I'd overshot the station by one block. Normally, this would be nothing more than a minor annoyance, but this is the Upfield line we're talking about here. And the Flinders Street train is pulling into the station at that very moment.

I'm a lost cause. I can only watch it whizz by as I dodge the puddles that threaten to submerge my feet entirely. It's 10:45. Whenever that next train is coming, it certainly won't be soon.

I step up onto the platform. I should be infuriated that I missed that train, but really I'm just happy to be out of the rain. I press the button to learn when the next train departs (fortunately the homeless man nearby doesn't stir. He seems to have nodded off quite peacefully). It departs, rather typically, at 11:14.

I'm completely soaked by now, of course. 15 minutes pass before I grab pen and paper and get started on this. Consider it my final confession, as I believe myself liable to die of hypothermia or pneumonia or whatever it is that a complete waterlogged state puts you at risk of. It's to the point now where I can't hold my iPod in my pocket for fear of water damage.
So let's be blunt. The Upfield line fucking sucks. One train in a half hour doesn't cut it. When we're talking about those lower than scum Connex trains, the only positive we have is their frequency. Well, apparently not always true. In such a built-up area, the trains are completely abysmal. Once again, public transport proves to be as useless as tits on a bull. Assuming trains run from 5 am to 12 am, Upfield features thirteen less services than other lines. If a service is cancelled altogether, (and believe me, it happens) you have one train in an hour. The same as a long-distance V-Line train. And this is for a train line that has a stop in Brunswick; it's not like this is some insignificant detour.

So this is what I should expect from my beloved public transport, huh? What could possibly be their excuse, I wonder...
Here's one - there are trams that run to Brunswick, too. That seems fair enough, until you consider what this suggests - an important train line is not self-sufficient, to the point where you shouldn't actually rely on it as a viable option of travel.
Fantastic stuff there. Let me also note that, should you dare choose to actually ride the train to your destination, I recommend catching the service from a half-hour earlier, because Upfield trains are frequently late. By seven and fifteen minutes on my last two trips.

If all this is aimless venting, then so be it. But I consider this another chapter in my vendetta against Lynne Kosky, one of the most pathetically futile women in the history of positions of power. No, my Ballarat woes haven't gotten any better either (alternative buses frequently having to be run for trains recently due to undercarriaging, or as they call it 'overcrowding'), but now I've seen to the failures in the supposedly reliable yet deplorable electric train system. It remains deplorable. Its reputation as reliable is in jeopardy.

Listening to Phil Collins 'I Wish it Would Rain Down' seemed pleasantly apt this morning. Hearing it this time has turned that into painful irony. Metaphorically painful, I assure you, because my body's numb now and I feel no actual pain at all.

Post-practica - the lonely celebration

So Match, Set, Game - the cleverly titled final practica that had been painstakingly assembled over the course of a semester (or in reality, three weeks) by David and myself, has completed its season.

I say season in the broadest possible sense, seeing how in reality it was only two shows, but I enjoy using the term season. After all, if Bonnie Tyler can only put on two shows, then so can we, dammit! (And the fact that I know the amount of shows Bonnie Tyler is putting on suggests that I hang around Crown far too often)

So what can I say? In two shows, we've come a long way, baby.
The first show, on Tuesday the 28th of October, was a learning experience to be sure. Let me give you the play by play; the theme is a rather ecclectic mix of performances, akin to the programs flicking past the eyes of an overzealous channel-surfer. To open, David and I boogied to the Proclaimers' I'm Gonna Be like hoons (more commonly referred to as 500 Miles by the uninformed), and already there were issues - we had organised dance moves, but there was a part where we were meant to basically just go nuts - I wasn't sure exactly how nuts I should be going. Should I be a conservative acorn? Or should I be letting it out in the full-blown ludicrousy of a water chestnut?
Tragically, I was acorning while David was chestnutting all over the place, so it looked rather disjointed. At this point, I, and no doubt Dave, were realising the value of doing at least one run through rather than simply leaping into it with both feet.

From there, things took a turn for the worst. The original intention, and the way things worked today, was that we had two television sets that would show two videos that were timed to run nearly exactly together. In one video, David was playing the lead role and in the other, I was the lead. Unfortunately, we learnt far too late that iMovie is one of the most infuriatingly incapable editing programs we have ever had the misfortune of dealing with, and its ridiculous 'non-destructive editing' had us going right up the wall. For those of you uninformed, non-destructive editing means that, even if you've deleted part of a clip, the computer will retain the data for the original information, in addition to whatever you've done to change it. Sounds all well and dandy, but if you've got a lot of scrap film to do away with, a 22-minute film can devour away 20 GBs of hard-drive space. Frustrating if you want to keep it, downright unserviceable when you're doing your work on a laptop with limited space. It came to the point where transferring six seconds of footage over to another file took five minutes apiece, and there wasn't even enough KB left on the poor laptop to even open the damned program.

Here's a pro-tip for you idiots at Apple - when we've deleted something on a program, we're given enough friggin' options to recover it as it is. We have our own moment of judgement, a fancy little undo feature and then, finally, the option of simply not saving the changes we've made if we discover we've deleted too much. And, if we're really uncertain of the changes we're to make, we have the option of saving the original footage in its own separate file, completely safe from our edit-happy clicking fingers.
So to be completely clear, if we delete something, the most likely reason we've done that is because we'd like to, oh I don't know... DELETE IT.

While scouring the Internet for a way to turn off this moronic, space-eating feature, I found people scratching their heads just like me about its very existence. Mac enthusiasts have this to say -
...you can't turn that off, that's how iMovie '06 works.

...Funny, because it appears to me that because of this feature, iMovie in fact does not work.

Anyhow, it came to the point where the laptop was so bogged down with un-edited and edited footage that it couldn't even muster up the strength to burn the project. So instead of having two televisions playing two similar videos, we were going to play one video after the other from the camera through the television. A tragic sacrifice in any event, but one we were prepared to make.

So unfortunate then, when the projects hadn't been able to save properly in their editing that halfway through David's version, the film actually stopped, and then started with my version. ...And then started over again.

I wouldn't say it was all downhill from there, as that was just about rock bottom, but it certainly didn't get any better - we had had the wind knocked out of our sails, and though the next couple segments where I listed all of the stupidest things I've done in life followed by a brief rap session from sock puppets (you'd have to be there) were received fairly well, nothing really got the audience rocking as we'd hoped.

Next, we headed up to the balcony to insult the practica itself in the same vein as the Muppets' Statler and Waldorf. A nice idea... except when we got up there, we realised we had no insults prepared. Crap.
After reeling off some of the lamest and lowbrow quips we could muster, our beloved stagehand Sean was to start up a video on the television down below.

Of course, this was going to be running off the camera. ...The camera which Sean had never operated before. Although the simultaneous videos fiasco was the worst part of the performance, there was nothing quite as nerve-racking as those painful moments when everyone in the room realised that nobody had told Sean how to start the camera up.
I didn't know what to expect. Would I have to go down there and do it myself? Was someone in the audience just going to say 'Enough of this rubbish!', illuminating the whole space and smashing our practica to bits, or were David and I just going to take the easy way out and simply leap over the balcony to our doom?

After about fifteen seconds, the film started up. I love you Sean.

In this video, filmed entirely in black and white and with a backing track of Enya's Smaointe, David and I were doing some of that contemptible interpretive dance. Meanwhile, the live David and I were bagging the video to high hell before the on-screen David grew sick of it and told the two of us to shut the hell up, or else he'd kick both our asses. It worked ok, but as our helpful tweaker Chris noted, the on-screen David was actually looking in a different direction from where we were. Whoops.

After this, David and I donned rather smart-looking suits and sang Ol' Man River in tones that, while certainly no great shakes on the great Paul Robeson, sounded pretty good. After the second verse, we completely changed gear, screeching out the notes at a high pitch with the enthusiasm of gospel singers.

The audience was... not amused. You mightn't be surprised to know this part was scrapped for the second performance. Bonus points to me though for including a Damien Cross photo.

Next, and by this point I felt so disparaged that I really didn't care any more, we put on clown makeup, and then started up an instructional video that both of us were rather proud of upon filming.
As German... scientists, for lack of a better title, David and I discussed men, women and relationships. It was really one of those things that, if you were in it, you watch it time and time again and it never gets old. For the audience however, it got old long before the end of its ten minute running time. Hans and Klaus certainly didn't win the people over that night.

Finally, the train wreck concluded with our grand musical number, I'm the One, a song I wrote to the tune of John Tesh's Spanish Steps. David and I hadn't worked on this for some time, and when we did it was mostly without the music to refer to, so it was only fitting when David was singing at a quicker pace than the music behind him, and then I followed that up by flat out just forgetting the lyrics that I myself had penned.

Finally, and in the only part that got any kind of real reaction, Sean came out in a dress and we fought over his/her/its affection. After this, David and I both sat in the wings on opposite sides of the space. We stayed there for several minutes, and though I couldn't see Davey or know for sure what he was thinking, no doubt he was in the same state that I was. Disgusted in myself, completely mortified that I had been part of such a disaster, and just wishing that the empty-feeling applause would go away. I can't remember the last time I've felt quite so low. I can't remember the last time I half-assed something and didn't get away with it. Plus, I burnt my damn finger playing with one of the lights. Those things get friggin' hot.

It was a failure of Michael Gow proportions; it was like somebody had taken the reprehensible Away, thrown in a couple televisions and disguised it as a university project. I had to make sure I wouldn't suffer the same feeling again, so I started the kind of damage control that's usually reserved for the aftermath of Joe Biden speeches.
I told Jess not to come. I told dad not to come. I told you not to come.

And judging by the sparse number of audience members on the second performance today, odds are you didn't come. Thanks.

Today, however, I learnt a valuable lesson. A lesson that I hadn't anticipated learning, and one that is still eating away at me at this moment. Because something unexpected happened today; everything that didn't work in the first performance worked this time. We both went bonkers in the opening, thanks to the tireless efforts of Sara the simultaneous films played alongside one another, the Statler/Waldorf lines were clever and we were positioned right for the threat to actually mean something, people actually laughed at the instructional video and I'm the One (though without John Tesh playing in the background) went without mistake. ...Plus, I didn't burn my finger this time. Bonza.

It was a mixed feeling for me, though. On the one hand, yes we had succeeded and pulled off a pretty good performance. On the other hand, because I had been so paranoid and faithless, Jess wasn't there to see it.
I will probably never see her steal the stage as Audrey in Viewbank's '04 production of Little Shop of Horrors. And similarly, she will never see me be decidedly adequate in Match, Set, Game.

It makes me begin to ponder what's wrong with me, you know? I can't even face my one and only, my teammate, my comrade, my confidant and my partner in more crimes than we'd be willing to confess, in the one time when I expected to be at a low? Wouldn't that be the time you'd most want her out there, being a great audience member, offering her advice after the performance and helping me ease the pain with generous amounts of liquor afterwards?

Nope, instead, after a surprisingly good performance, I had nothing. No Jess, no liquor, no hurrah from that young lass who brightens my day. Of course, I only have myself to blame for that one. I've really got to ship up on this trust thing, methinks, and just allow Jess to be there for me to do just what I know she will; be supportive and wonderful.

Until I can get that through my skull, those liquor-filled nights are going to be a damn side more pathetic-looking.

In Layman's Terms: This Young Man

Since I don't do anything other than work and get professional headshots, I've got nothing of import to report... So instead of updating my life, here's another Titans-related BLOG! Sorry Atcho, no mention of Dinger this time, so let's say it as much as we can now. Heimerdinger Heimerdinger Heimerding-aling-aling-er!

In Layman's Terms: This Young Man
Tony King
Sep 18, 2008

You've been doing it all your life. There may be others out there trying to do the same thing, but nobody does it like you do.

When you hit a certain age, you know you're special. You absolutely dominate against everyone else, and though there are people out there trying to tell you to change this or try that, the fact remains that you dominate – you're an unorthodox person, and that suits you just fine.

Once you get to the next level, everyone knows you're special. You hit success on a national stage, and now you're the name on everyone's lips. The same detractors play the same tune, but they're far and few between, because the fact remains; you win, and when in the biggest game of your life you carry your men on your shoulders and overcome a veritable highlight reel of players, you know you're ready.

Then the big league comes. It's faster now, and more intense. But that doesn't matter, you've seen what they can do, they don't realize your power. In your first year, you claim the offensive rookie of the year title. Same unusual style, same niggling complaints, same success. "Can't nobody tell me nothing."

Then… they know you. Who you are, what you can do, but most of all, what you can't do. Running lanes that were once open seem to be locked tightly, throws you once made now drop short of their receivers, and suddenly the world ignores what you've done in the past. Now the detractors are at their loudest, because their numbers are growing. You've been proving people wrong all your life, just doing what you do. But now your own limits seem apparent. Everything's changed on you, it all doesn't seem so clear and the clock's ticking before you're old news. You were once Superman, but the whole field is Kryptonite now. So what in the hell went wrong?

When a man like Vince Young becomes available to an ailing team the way he did back in 2006, it's hard not to become enamored with him. He's an exciting leader with incredible physical ability, and he just plain wins. Questions about his mechanics and intelligence were always there, but these things could be ironed out with enough time.

However, with an 0-3 record and Jeff Fisher's job possibly on the line, changes had to be made. Under a veil of 'preparing him for the future', but with intentions to breathe life and excitement to a stagnant franchise, Vince was thrown to the wolves. With him, the Titans would double last year's win total, and anchored by a strong running attack headed by Travis Henry, VY made some magic at all the right times.

Enough magic to fool us into thinking he had a good season, even.

His late game heroics may have provided the most important results; wins, but what if Mathias Kiwanuka hadn't let go? What if that overtime scramble in Houston fell short? His performance in spurts led to wins, but his overall body of work wasn't pretty; 184/357, 2199 yards and 12 TDs to 13 interceptions. A 66.7 QB rating. Out of all QBs eligible to be ranked (minimum of 14 passes/game), that plants Vince at 30, just a hair above a superstar like Bruce Gradkowski.

I know what you're thinking; this isn't what Vince does. He's not a pocket passer. Stats mean nothing…

Do they really? Vince's QB rating coming out of Texas was 144.9 (by NFL values that translates to 92.8). He could pass then; even if it was his secondary facet it was present and effective, so why should we claim it wasn't important? Wouldn't we like a complete Vince Young, who can do all these things?

Just like pocket passers have to be able to move around in the pocket effectively, a scrambling QB simply can't be unable to throw the ball. If I were a facetious man, I'd point to our two-headed monster in the run game, the steady bruiser in LenDale White and the speedy burner in Chris Johnson, and suggest a 'QB-by-committee' system where Vince comes in on situational downs, demoted to Seneca Wallace status (Seneca's career QB rating is higher, incidentally).

An 8-5 record as a starter and OROY may have really hurt Vince in the long run – he hasn't been pushed because of it. Had he lost those games, he would have likely been shifted in and out (Kerry Collins was miserable in those first three games, but he had only been signed weeks earlier. You can't digest a playbook and get a feel for your teammates in that time), a developing player who's main emphasis is to hone his craft – theoretically, in the 'ideal rookie QB development cycle', Vince would only now be starting his first year as a full-time starter, no doubt having really had a chance to work out the kinks without the pressure of the whole team weighing on him. Instead, we as fans expect him to call up that old magic in crunch time to pull out a win. It's no secret that the team's been bailing him out, nabbing victories in spite of him as opposed to because of him.

But think to yourself, you've revitalized your team, but now it's not working quite the same and you're labeled a bust and ostracised by the people who once loved you? Sounds frustrating to me to just consider it at this moment. Must be downright infuriating when it's following you every day of your life. And, to be brutally honest, what is Vince Young without football? Isn't he just a dumb ol' country boy? Does he really have the emotional depth to suck it in and grow up?

Optimistically speaking, this is karma. Two years ago, success may have blinded Vince Young, and for the first time in his career, he's down and out for a prolonged period of time. He's frustrated, depressed and betrayed. A weak man may give up and run, but that isn't the man we know. Said Mack Brown, "…after he played so poorly against Missouri he never lost another game."

So you will sit, Vince, and you will watch; consider it your late rookie season. If you're the winner and competitor that you're billed as, you'll come back with a fire and willingness to evolve. It's key at this point for you to learn from your mistakes, not get flustered by them. The strongest man isn't measured by the height of his success, but by his triumph over his failures.

Midsummer Night's Auditions

No doubt you're sick of this by now, what with the way I've sent it to people in five different mediums, yet all the same...

AUDITION NOTICE FOR MIDSUMMER
Group auditions for HTC Youth's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream will take place on Monday the 1st of September and Wednesday the 3rd of September. We are looking for actors aged 15 to 25 to take part on this December production. Actors are required to prepare one shakespearean monologue and one non shakespearean monologue each approximately one minuet long. The auditions will take place at Broken Mirror Productions, 2C Staley Street, Brunswick, 3056 at 7pm.
Performance dates are from Wednesday 10th December to Saturday 20th December.

For further audition information please email Doug at auditions@brokenmirror.com.au

And like I keep saying, if it's not your bag baby, that's alright, we want all comers, backstage or whatever! And if all else fails, forward the message to a friend or two and all will be forgiven. ;)
Anyone interested in any capacity other than acting need only contact Jess at charming_jess@hotmail.com

...Boo-yeah bazooka.

In Layman's Terms: The Dinger Influence

As no good BLOG goes without extension, I thought I might as well put up the article I had posted on GoTitans.com. I can appreciate my readers around here aren't particularly into the theme, but I shalt place it here anyhow. Maybe I have a larger fanbase with all the fringe Titans fans congregrating, hungry for some knowledge? It's doubtful, but mostly because their hunger would likely take them to someone smarter. There's only so much one man can do, you see.

In Layman's Terms: The Dinger Influence
Tony King
Jul 18, 2008

Of all the off-season changes the Titans made this year, perhaps the most significant was the re-acquisition of offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger. And why not? In theory, he should give a boost to everyone on the offense. Titans fans all across the land wait giddily for us to become a razzle-dazzle spectacle wherein Alge Crumpler returns to being one of the best tight ends in the league, Chris Johnson convincingly claims offensive rookie of the year acclaim, and Vince Young throws twice as many touchdowns as he did last year (actually, that last one shouldn't be too hard).

Or at least, we expect to see an improvement over Norm Chow's pee-wee offense that avoided the endzone as though it was haunted.

So what will we be getting from the Dinger sequel? We all know what happened in his first five year stint. Top ten in offensive yards in 2001 and 2003, top five in time of possession all five years (league leader in 2001 and 2002), co-MVP awards for Steve McNair in 2003, as well as the warm fuzzy memories of us taking some shots downfield every now and then.

But that was then. This is 2008. Who remains from those offenses? Practically nobody. No Mac, no Eddie, no Mase, not even stinkin' Chris Brown, (but in retrospect, we're used to him not playing anyway). The only holdover from back then is Eugene Amano, but I somehow doubt the offense will centralize around him. And yeah, J-Mac is back too, but I hardly recognize him now that he's bald.

The NFL remains a 'what have you done for me lately' league, and in all honesty I lost track of Dinger after he left us. Perhaps if we truly want to predict what he's going to achieve, we should delve into what he's done over the last three seasons.

In 2005, Mike jumped ship after a poor 5-11 season to take on the Jets' offensive coordinator position. Now as you might recall, the '05 Jets were horrible. Chad Pennington and Jay Fiedler went down in week three, leaving the QB reigns to first year starter Brooks Bollinger and Vinny Testaverde, who once upon a time was so bad there was a big blue billboard in Tampa that said "Vinny thinks this is orange!"

That year, the Jets ranked 29th in points scored with 240, nearly 100 less than the league average of 329.9. It was just an ugly season all around, with stats like 3970 total yards to the average 5054.7, and 11 touchdown passes to the average of 20.1 (as a matter of interest, Justin McCareins caught 43 passes for 713 yards and two TDs that year). The Jets were below the league average in every offensive category.

Any way you spin it, 2005 was a bad year for the 4-12 Jets, and particularly for Dinger's offense. I'm inclined however, to give him a mulligan on this one. In that season, Pennington, Fiedler, TE Chris Baker, RT Jason Fabini, WR Wayne Chrebet, C Kevin Mawae and later on RB Curtis Martin were all placed on injured reserve. Not exactly Dinger's fault, unless he was actually breaking fibulas and tearing rotator cuffs as a motivational tactic.

Herm Edwards was traded to the Chiefs after that year, and Dinger soon left for the Broncos. Though originally brought on as OC, that job later went to the line coach Rick Dennison making Dinger an assistant head coach. His influence was over the passing game, while Dennison covered the run game. As we all know, Mike Shanahan, a former OC himself, calls his own plays and obviously had a major influence in the Broncos offense.

In 2006, The Broncos took a startling fall, just missing the playoffs and again, the offense ranked below league average in all categories except, funnily enough, Dennison's run game. In passing yards, the Broncos finished a lowly 25th and sported 20 interceptions. One could pinpoint this however, to the inexplicable mess Jake Plummer became. After three strong seasons in Denver, in 11 games he threw 13 interceptions and posted a 68.8 QB rating. It was like Arizona had finally caught up with him. Rookie Jay Cutler became the starting QB, and managed a pretty good job of bringing some consistency back to the position. The overall offense ranked 17 in points gained, just one spot behind Chow's Titans.

2007 was worse for the offense as a whole with another poor statistical year. The Broncos offense ranked 21st in points scored, one spot ahead of Chow's Titans. But Dinger's passing game rose to 13 yardage gained. Jay Cutler started every game that year, threw 20 TDs to 14 interceptions, had a 63.6 completion percentage and a shiny 88.1 rating.

As most of us already know, Dinger worked closely with Cutler while at Denver. Out of the big three QBs available in the '06 draft, Cutler was the most overlooked (Vince Young being the most explosive, Matt Leinart being the most NFL ready), and though his team still hasn't found the success Vince has managed with the Titans, his career QB rating is 88.2 to Vince's is 69.0 and Matt's 71.2. People often say that what Vince does for a team isn't reflected in his rating, but you can't tell me that you wouldn't prefer he hold the intangibles, plus a lofty rating.

Yes, maybe Cutler has had a better understanding of the game after all, but it's impossible to think Dinger didn't have a lot to do with it. While we're throwing numbers out there (as I've done fairly frequently so far), Steve McNair's career QB rating is 82.8. In five years with Dinger, it was 87.4. The potential of what he can do for QBs is rather enticing, and hopefully he can transfer it to Vince Young, who certainly could use the help.

For those of you hoping for an offensive explosion to follow Dinger's return to Tennessee, there's one more thing for you to consider. Jeff Fisher.

It's no secret Fish favors a system of a steady run game an solid run D, maintaining possession and basically simulating a playground bully hogging the swings so that nobody else gets a turn. It might be wise to expect this to stay the same, especially considering he's got an inconsistent young QB, a gimpy old TE and receivers so B-grade you'd expect them to appear on a program hosted by Flavor Flav. With a strong o-line, a young group of running backs with potential, a smash-mouth fullback and a rookie tight end considered one of the better blockers in the draft, it smells like a ball control offense around the corner yet again, boys and girls.

Though the Titans will continue to focus on running the football, the team has passed more than run since Fisher's first season as head coach in 1995 (6538 passes to 6258 runs). This is on par with Dinger's first stint as OC when the Titans threw 2568 passes to 2432 runs. The difference in the Dinger years is the effectiveness of the passing game. And that's where I feel we'll feel his influence the most.

Early this season, look for immediate improvement in Young's mechanics and route-running by the receivers. Even though he claims to have mellowed, Dinger is a stickler for precision. In time, we may even see more shots downfield. But don't expect to see the Titans become a hulking offensive juggernaut right away. Miracles don't happen overnight. But expect the Titans passing game to dramatically improve over last season and the Dinger influence to exercise the ghosts from of the endzone.

She works hard in the nuddy

Just finished my sixth straight day at work. It's 1:29 am now, and I'm due to leave at 8 am to start my seventh. Then it's one day off, followed by another two days back at the grindstone. Working five days a week may not sound like much (I mean jeez, most people do that anyway, right?), but consider we're discussing a lad who would regularly not leave the house for a week over the holidays, then throwing all sorts of 6/7/8 hour shifts at him during school holidays, when put frankly IT'S REALLY BUSY, and you get a tired Tony.

Not that I'm complaining, I mean I love my job and I'm quite a big fan of money (even though it means the friggin' government won't pay me this fortnight. Jerks.), but I just get more than a little pissed off at comments I read from our venerable entertainment industry.
Consider Christina Aguilera. Her 'job' is to make music, and I'm using the word music in the broadest possible term considering the ear destruction she churns out, and for that she gets paid millions of dollars. So what does she do on her days off? (Days off? From what??)
"We have naked Sundays." she offers handily, "You just lie in bed all day and chill with each other and do things that husbands and wives do."

...At the end of this article, mX stated in reference to the lewd reference at quote's end 'the mind boggles'. Though indeed the mind does boggle, this particular mind is boggled by the concept that while the rest of us work our asses off day in and day out (several in far worse affairs than mine self, mind), Christina Aguilera needs a day off from making millions in which to sleep in and galavant about in her birthday suit.

Put short, fuck you Christina Aguilera and fuck your naked Sundays.