Super Tecmo Still Represents

Some administration before Pun City gets to the meat of this post:

1. A variety of conspirators prevented this blog from putting up a reasonable Sunday post. Laundry, long IM conversations, only one early game, and an uncompetitive showing by the Kournikovas made for a pretty dull post, and this blog didn't want to subject its 3 readers to that. (This blog means, you put up with enough already).

2. Anyone know what that thing is called that is sort of like a Magna Doodle, but it's not as "high-tech" and it just has a clear sheet to erase the scribbles instead of a magnetic bar? This blog is trying to find that out to put it on a Christmas list.

Nextly, a highly important subject. NFL Players that appeared in Tecmo Super Bowl and are still active.

This blog noticed that Morten Andersen and John Carney squared off on Monday Night Football this week. Andersen was with the Saints back in the 1991 classic, and has come out of retirement to kick for the Falcons this year.

Carney was with the Chargers back in 1991, and now he's alive and kicking with the Saints.

Jeff Feagles was punting with the Eagles back in '91, and now he's with the Giants, where he makes a good amount of money just picking the right number.

Jeff George, though arguably not really in the NFL, was with the Colts back in '91. He was with the Raiders in training camp, and is sort of on stand-by as he's waiting to get picked up.

Stunningly, that's it. As you can see, Tecmo Super Bowlers are a retiring breed.

So root for them, yo.

It's a Sledge Hammer.

This post is in homage to the Wilson Sledge Hammer 2.8. Tonight, this blog played what will probably be its last tennis match with this beautiful implement of destruction.

This blog first discovered the racket when looking for its first good tennis racket early in this blog's tennis career. The year was 1996, and Wilson had come out with the Sledge Hammer series of rackets, which aside from being extra stiff for more power, also took on a different shape to get closer to the maximum (legal) hitting surface.

As a beginning tennis player getting by with natural ability, this racket was right up this blog's alley. Given this blog's height, and the x-treme amount of power that could be generated when adding that much more height to a racket, it was a pretty awesome match even when getting to balls was no longer a concern.

This blog must have won about 200 matches with the 2.8, broken about 40 strings, won a WIAA state tennis match, hit innumerable improbable shots, and essentially became an extension of this blog's arm.

Lasting a decade, the racket was able to serve differently than others because the extra width allowed for extra spin and more downforce on kick serves. Now this blog will have to shorten up its service motion a degree or two and cope with a slightly smaller racket face. But that's all good, this blog can take the heat.

So here's to you, Sledge Hammer, Pun City Commends You. Your efforts will not be in vain.

Packer Fan Gameday Diary: Week 2

Eh, that wasn't too bad last week, so this blog's going to give it a shot again.

11:55 - Just woke up from a nap, this blog decided extra sleep was more "worth it" than either pre-game.

11:59 - The pre-game montage for Packers-Saints is basically a collection of Reggie Bush and Brett Favre shots over REM's "We are all made of stars." This blog did find it hilarious that they were showing Favre for the "People they fall apart..." lyric.

12:03 - The other game on the early slate is Texans-Colts. So it's Dog City, USA no matter which channel.

12:04 - This blog had temporarily forgotten that this is the first Montage-fest that it will witness. Reggie Bush gets the ball on an end around on the first play of the game. This will open all of the montages.

12:05 - Holy crap! The Packers' Greg Kampman just forced a fumble and recovered it, so the offense really only needs to go 30 yards. Well, Field Goal's not so bad.

12:06 - Colts already scored after having recovered a Texans fumble and throwing to Brandon Stokley. Colts 7-0. Packers-Saints tied at zero with Green Bay threatening.

12:09 - Greg Jennings TD! Go Pack Go! Packers 7-0.

12:10 - This blog should have laid this out earlier, but, along with 2 co-workers in the pre-season, it picked that the Packers would win this game. Then again, this blog and its co-workers all picked them for 6-10. After week 1's embarrassing loss to the Bears, we all wanted to recalibrate our bets and pick more losses.

12:11 - Just saw the Southwest Airlines commercial where the grocery cashier gets annihilated by the pineapple. This blog is sorry, but that one never gets old.

12:12 - Today's Packer game announcers are Ron Pitts and Terry Donahue. After getting blown out with turd announcers Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan last week, Fox somehow decided to slightly improve our announcers. This blog isn't complaining. The cool thing about Pitts doing a Packer game is that he used to play in Green Bay. This is already evident, as he said that Packer kicker Dave Raymer "almost put the kickoff in the Fox River." A nice touch, bringing up the local geography.

12:16 - Unreal. There's 9:36 left in the first quarter, and the Packers just forced and recovered their second fumble. Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila forced it, and Cullen Jenkins recovered. The offense only needs to go about 20 yards, and based on the last possession, this seems manageable. Then again, 2 TDs from an offense that couldn't even get in position for better than a 53-yard FG last week seems unlikely. Pun City projects Field Goal.

12:18 - Dave Raymer lines up for a 24-yarder. Packers up 10-0 and looking somehow dominant (despite inability to punch it in from 20 yards out).

12:20 - This blog's Fantasy League team of choice, the Louisiana Kournikovas, somehow doesn't have any of its 8 players in the lineup for the early games except Chad Johnson. Kournikova Reserve Joseph Addai just scored for the Colts to put them up 14-0.

12:26 - Another note on Fantasy Leagues. This blog decided that any time its players were going up against the Packers, that would be an automatic start. If Eric Parker were going against the Pack, and it meant Chad Johnson would sit, this blog would do it in an instant.

12:27 - Crap. Bush just made a decent catch and ran it about 15 yards. Definite montage fodder. Although, with the recent intensification of his improper collegiate benefits, this blog wonders if the Reggie Bush lovefest is over. Hopefully, at least the montage-fest is.

12:28 - My Lundy, Lundy Bridge, wanna go down. Wali Lundy, showing his equivalency to Plaxico Burress (Um, not really. Check last week's post for more info on that), just fumbled it over to the Colts. Texans have had 3 turnovers on 3 possessions.

12:30 - Spectacular interception by Al Harris and the Packers have the ball back. This blog is definitely feeling like it's in Bizarro NFL world. This blog just checked with the NFL Network to see if they were playing a prank on everyone or something......

12:32 - Instead, it found that they're showing "Red Zone," where they cycle between stats at every game that's going on. Whoa!! That is awesome. May need to watch that instead of a late game. This blog now knows what it was like when Joey and Chandler discovered the free porn network.

12:35 - Strange Packer play. Noticing a neutral zone infraction when Favre was in the shotgun, Scott Wells snapped it when Favre wasn't looking. Luckily Favre tracked it down and was able to throw it away instead of the safety that probably should have happened. Also, the penalty was called.

12:37 - As Favre is being sacked, Ron Pitts is saying "plenty of time for Favre." Well, maybe this crew isn't so great. Still beats Rosen though. Rosen's so bad, this blog doesn't even have any trademark to imitate from him. This site supposes it would have been dead silence followed by, "And a loss of 8 on the play."

12:39 - Packers now up 13-o on another Dave Raymer field goal. 50 seconds left in the first quarter. After last week, 13 points on the season would have seemed a stretch, so this blog is lovin' it like McDonald's, a proud Gameday sponsor of the Pack!

12:48 - Apparently not all games get the cool new telestrator graphics. Terry Donahue just broke out the old grade school "stay between the lines"-style drawing. Maybe he asked to keep the old style. "I'm not going with all that fancy, easy-to-watch mumbo jumbo. You give me the crappy stuff so it looks like my kid was playing Etch-A-Sketch on national TV."

12:53 - CBS shows that Chad Johnson scored a touchdown and did the Chicken Dance. This is probably in homage to his role as Grand Marshal of some Cincinnati Festival where he is going to lead the assembled patrons in the Chicken Dance. In other brash Kournikova receiver news, Roy Williams' prediction of Lion victory over the Bears is looking unlikely since they're down 17-0. Williams does have 3 catches for 33 yards, which was about his full-game total last week.

12:57 - Quick check in on "Red Zone." Man is that awesome. If this blog had to pick one channel for the whole day, that would be it. Luckily, it doesn't have to choose less than 3, so as it is there will be only intermittent checks. Per Red Zone, Reggie Bush only has 20 all-purpose yards on 4 touches, which should probably limit his montage factor.

1:02 - Packers coach Mike McCarthy looking significantly more competent this game, choosing to rant into his headset instead of pulling an Art Shell and staring blankly into space. Colts now up 17-0. Fox hilariously chose to show a graphic of Reggie Bush's plays at each position. Plays at WR: 6. Plays at RB: 9. 6 and 9! This blog is guessing some production assistant waited until that exact moment so he could sneak that in. Nice work, dude.

1:08 - First Koren Robinson sighting. He's on the sidelines. This blog is mildly surprised he hasn't played yet, but this blog supposes that the Saints haven't kicked off yet, and kick returns may be the only chance he sees the field for this first game (of his). This blog is looking forward to it. Million dollar talent, 10-cent head as they say.

1:12 - Deuce McAllister scores and cuts it to 13-7 . Packers may yet find a way to lose this. After all, their offense hasn't gone more than 30 yards on a possession yet. Kournikovas are only down 28.4-10.5 right now, despite going 1 on 5. This bodes extremely well for their chances. A quick check on the free league this blog is in reveals that it's a total points league that doesn't separate between weeks. This means this blog's Kournikovas II are most likely going to be in last place for the entire season. Speaking of which, Texans now within 17-3.

1:22 - Colts up 20-3 at the half. Reggie Bush stuffed for a loss. This after a Walter Stanley-esque punt return where he went backwards 10 yards to end up gaining 5 on the return. Unfortunate, because if he paid for retreating, it wouldn't make any highlight reels. Now it's montage-bound for sure, although those montages are going to be pretty lame this week since he's only got 33 total yards.

1:27 - On the muted TV, (Colts-Texans halftime), they just showed Daunte Culpepper's patented "throw the ball away but still make it catchable" play. The problem is that he always makes it catchable for the defender, so the Bills DB just stretched out to make the pick. He repeatedly does this, it's like he doesn't perceive the boundaries. Instead of putting it in the 4th row, he figures that if the ball has a trajectory that would put it out of bounds before it lands, that's sufficient. This leads to a number of needless interceptions, which is a big part of why he imploded last year.....

1:31 - Speaking of which, Packers are now down 14-13, and not really showing any signs of life as far as being able to stop anyone anymore. Ahmad Carroll got scorched, which is his calling card despite having a 4.22 40 time. This blog is thinking the opening Packer flurry was a mirage and they'll lose this thing 35-13. They had this blog hoping for a minute there.

1:51 - Hey, first Reggie Bush montage, and it's about how he's struggling! That's very cool. Hopefully Pacman Jones was right when he said "He's just fast, as long as you keep him inside, he won't hurt you." Second half kickoff reveals that the Packers' 2 deep men on Kick Returns (Koren Robinson and Vernand Morency) have a combined 2 weeks of experience with the team. That's in total days, not games. Packers now known as the Ellis Island of the NFL. Though with Robinson, it might be more like Rikers Island.

1:59 - After the Colts went up 27-3 on Houston, CBS gave up on that game. Now at the Bills-Dolphins game, so this blog might get to see some more of Daunte Culpepper's wacky "throwaway" antics.

2:08 - Instead, it turns out to be Brett Favre's "throwaway" antics, which, combined with the Saints getting a hand on the throw, created an interception in the end zone. Extraordinarily frustrating, especially when Joe Horn goes 50 yards to set up a Saints Field Goal (17-13 Saints). On a positive note, the good Kournikovas are only down 41.4-13.6, while still going 1-on-5.

2:23 - Another team in this blog's fantasy league, the Walter Sobchaks (named after the Big Lebowski character), have an amazing 111 points already. Granted, they've got 7 of 8 players in the early games, and the defensive points could decrease somewhat, but that's still almost definitely going to win the week. Saints go up 20-13. Packers somehow still within 7 despite having shown very little sign of life on offense since the first quarter. Don't tell this blog "Well, with Favre, you're in every game," because that's 1997 Favre, not this version with this "supporting" cast.

2:36 - Robert "Turd" Ferguson scores and the Packers tie it at 20, so this is cool. This blog is flashing back to 1989 when it was Don Majkowski leading a similarly talentless team in a series of amazing comebacks. Granted, this is Brett Favre, and one-half of a comeback does not constitute an entire series, but still fun to watch.

2:40 - Terry Donahue, in describing 2 pass routes, uses the phrase "Like 2 cars passing in the night..." Apparently the guy writes romance novels when he's not taking up booth space. Then again, maybe while he is in the booth as well.

2:46 - Ron Pitts describes a Vikings fake Field Goal attempt as "a little trickeration." Who is doing this game? Danielle Steel and Rob Schneider?

2:54 - Pass Interference, Ahmad Carroll. There used to be a Phillies player whose nickname was "Losing Pitcher" (Hugh Mulcahy), because of the number of times that newspapers would show that line. This blog is hereby nominating the nickname of "Pass Interference" Ahmad Carroll.

2:57 - Nick Collins burned for a Marcus Colston touchdown, Saints up 27-20. On the ensuing kickoff, Koren Robinson gets into his second scuffle of the day. Very possible his string of drunk driving offenses is a sore subject among other players.

2:59 - Ahman Green fumbles. Deuce McAllister scores. Even though there's 7:54 left, that's the ballgame. It was nice while it lasted. Saints up 34-20.

3:14 - Packers score on a Noah Herron touchdown catch. This is basically just taunting the poor Packer fans, but there is 4:18 left. Packers trail 34-27. The late games have begun and the Kournikovas are now within 58.84-26.66. It'd be nice to get the lead relatively quickly here so that the night games don't matter.

3:24 - On 4th and 10, Favre misses everyone by 10 yards. Ugh. While this blog appreciates that the Packers were "in" this game until 1:57 left, it's not cool when there were so many blown opportunities and they only lose by 7. The Pack definitely isn't going to be winning for a while, given the quality of their upcoming opponents (Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Miami). On the bright side, McCarthy looks genuinely pissed, so perhaps there's some hope for these bums. Kournikovas trail 61.14-28.82, so that's gotta get better. Lot of games left though, and now 7-on-3.

3:33 - Always unwatchable local postgame show "Fox 6 Blitz" comes on, somehow made even less watchable with the loss. Switching over to "NFL Scoreboard" on the NFL Network, with postgame recaps and press conferences. CBS has Broncos-Chiefs, scoreless through most of a quarter.

4:21 - Broncos-Chiefs still a 0-0 dud, Bulger hit Holt for a Kournikova double touchdown, and Kournikovas II is even out of the cellar, remarkably in 10th place! This blog is heading to dinner!

Burger King: Took Pun City Long Enough

Burger King is a chain of Fast Food restaurants you may have heard about. They've got over 11,000 locations in several countries. The first of these locations was started in Miami, FL in 1954. As of late, they've been closing underperforming locations left and right. This has been particularly disconcerting for Pun City, since the two closest locations to this blog got shut down. Like many days per year, this blog recently had the chance to visit a Burger King.

Pros: Very good burgers. Started the "Have It Your Way" trend in Fast Food, and are not surprised or phased when such a request is made. Affordable pricing for a Fast Food spot. Good non-diet dark soda options in Coke and Dr. Pepper. Also have bonus of Mello Yello and Sprite, which is a nice light combination if the 2 are used together. Chicken fries are decent, regular fries are very good for a Fast Food locale. Option of onion rings is pretty cool, this blog likes the variety of onion ring BK serves, so as far as this blog is concerned, they've got the best onion rings this blog has seen in fast food. The new Quad Stacker is pretty badass for a burger. This blog likes it without the special sauce, and doesn't mind if the sandwich gets a little mashed in the packaging process.

Cons: Cleanliness. A large number of locations have problems keeping it clean. Sloppy soda dispensers are pretty prevalent, this blog has seen leaky roofs, greasy tables, and slop on the trash can lid at multiple Burger Kings. The location closings have proven to be a major problem for this blog. Though this site works relatively close to a BK, this location is unfortunately the closest location to this blog's home also. That means a 20+ minute drive to the nearest BK, which is not optimal. Primarily because there used to be a location 5 minutes from this blog's home. Dessert offerings are not too great. This blog has tried multiple dessert offerings, and none of them ended up being as good as even like a McDonald's might have. Commercials are pretty consistently good.

Overall Ranking: 7 out of 10 Fryers. Some solid upside here. Could improve the ranking if they had open trash cans so you don't have to push in the greasy/ketchupy/wet swinging door of the trash receptacle. Need a lot more locations back for sure. Service isn't awesome, but it's not horrible so there's upside but it's certainly not a drain on the grade. Maybe offering some decent ice cream or a more American apple pie would help as well. Adding a Cherry Coke would be cool too, but soda is definitely not a weakness for BK. Obviously they could include all-around cleanliness, so if this blog were running a Burger King, that's where Pun City would begin (after moving a location in to Grafton, WI).

Want to see how Burger King stacks up against the competition? Check it out, yo:

Culver's
In-N-Out Burger
Jack In The Box
McDonald's
Rally's
Sonic Drive-In
Wendy's
White Castle

NFL Kickoff Sunday Running Diary

11:05 - Had gotten up for an 8:00 church service, which limited this blog's sleep. Got back in time to nap until now, so unfortunately missed the x-treme opening of each pre-game show. As usual, had the live scoring on my PC, then able to peer over to see two TVs with each pre-game show on. After some tweaking of each remote, got it set where this blog was able to hit one mute button to put volume on 1 tube and off on the other.

11:06 - Whoa. JB's with CBS now? This blog thought he went to HBO or something and Pun City would never hear from him again. He's actually really good with them. This site is thinking perhaps JB was carrying Fox's show all along and no one noticed.

11:07 - Weird to see Joe Buck trying to rein it in with the 3 overpowering personalities on Fox's set. He's not doing a great job of it. Strangely enough, they've got Jack Del Rio on set since their live in Jacksonville.

11:32 - Sweet, CBS has NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on set. He does a solid job answering questions about New Orleans and Los Angeles, then is asked to sign the new football to "see if the signature is a good replica." He says, "This is a switch, Dan Marino asking for my autograph?" The CBS crew agrees the signature is well-replicated on the ball. This proves the NFL is not being controlled by a robot, at least this blog thinks.

11:50 - Joe Buck absolutely gushes about Jack Del Rio having joined them onset, openly campaigning for other coaches to do this in other cities. That would be cool, but enough with the pandering, Joe. This is like Koren Robinson begging for his job back after the 3rd DUI. "I know you don't have to do it, but come on, we're money, come onnnn."

11:52 - The Fox guys go through their Super Bowl picks, just picking one team to make it. The standard Carolina, Seattle, and Pittsburgh picks for the analysts, then Buck asks to make a pick, choosing Jacksonville's opponent, Dallas.

11:55 - Curt Menefee (who?) is introduced as the halftime host since Joe's gotta do play-by-play for the games. When asked his pick, Menefee says he wanted to pick Carolina but that's already taken. So he gets everyone thrilled by picking Jacksonville. Jags' mascot Jackson De Ville goes nuts, instead of the shadow boxing he was doing when Buck picked Dallas.

12:05 - CBS has Rams - Broncos, Fox has Seahawks - Lions. Neither game promises to be particularly great. Fox has a trend of giving the doggiest possible game to Packer fans, primarily a result of the NFC Central being horrible. For this reason, Broncos-Rams is somehow looking fantastic right now.

12:07 - Mike Shanahan has decided Mike and Tatum Bell will alternate series, and they'll go with the "hot hand." This is not ideal news for Pun City's fantasy league team, the Louisiana Kournikovas. Mike Bell is in the starting lineup, and does not look to be a huge producer. Frank Gore may need to be the Kournikova's starter for a while unless Shanahan suddenly decides that it's Tatum for whom the bell tolls.

12:08 - From the Lions game, they show Dick Stockton from the press box as he previews the game. Due to his bizarre receeding fro whisping off to the sides, plus the background looking too far away, he looks very reminiscent of Yoda in front of a green screen. Kitna to Williams, hhummm?

12:20 - Frequent Pun City contributor Wells calls to see how many TV's this blog has up and running. Come on, you know this blog better than that! This blog will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was mainly just calling to confirm it for another friend that was curious.

12:25 - Marc Bulger is looking good, leading the Rams on a 7-minute drive. Unfortunately, he's not getting it to Torry Holt enough. Kournikovas gotta work together, man! Bulger's going to need to explain this to Anna herself if he's not careful.

12:27 - CBS shows the Dick Vermeil press conference commercial. Mildly comical, but it reminds Pun City of a larger point. When this blog heard that Greg Kinnear was going to play Vermeil in "Invincible," this blog was thinking, no chance, he's going to be terrible, Kinnear just can't separate from that weird dude in Mystery Men and somehow convince me he's Vermeil. This blog saw Invincible on Friday though, and it was stunning. Kinnear is Vermeil. The hair was pure '80s Vermeil, they got the white belts the Eagles staff used to wear, the big collared polos, and he somehow got his jaw to jut out like Vermeil's. Then he also mastered the talk-only-out-of-your-mouth-without-moving-any-other-part-of-your-face Vermeil speak. Unreal. The movie, while not altogether amazing, is probably worth seeing just to marvel at this shocking Kinnear-as-convincing-Vermeil turn of events.

12:37 - Denver loses a challenge where Jake Plummer fumbled and the Rams recovered on the 4. Problematically, the missed block that led to the fumble was Mike Bell's bad. Despite a promising 8-yard run, Bell's chances of being "the hot hand" just plummeted.

12:39 - Bulger to Holt in the end zone!.....incomplete.

12:40 - Matt Hasselbeck appears to get jacked up helmet to helmet. It was 3rd down, so he doesn't have to get back in there immediately, but he seemed to be a little dazed afterwards. Should be interesting to see how his stats change after this.

12:41 - On the ensuing 4th down, Josh Brown has his second FG attempt blocked in 2 tries. Somewhere, Fantasy Owners are pissed. (Not this blog though).

12:44 - Tatum Bell fumbles! The hot hand definitely doesn't "hot potato" it. Say what you will about missed blocks causing a fumble, at least Mike Bell didn't fumble it on his own. Put Cutler and Mike Bell in!

12:48 - Kournikovas the closest they've been today to arch-rival "The Majik Man." He came in with a 22-0 lead, it's now 30.4-29.46. So that's kinda awesome. Some nice work by Chad Johnson to get it there.

12:51 - 30.92-30.4! First lead of the season. Time to get Anna her first major title!

12:58 - Josh Brown finally makes a field goal. Perhaps more importantly, Hasselbeck seemed fine on the drive, even though he had a couple Favre moments, throwing the ball underhanded to Shaun Alexander, and directing traffic while being taken down on another play. This blog also realized Majik Man has 3 players Monday night and 2 tonight, so the Kournikovas darn well better have a good lead after these games. Otherwise, major probalo.

1:30 - Mike Bell scores a TD. For most of the drive, he showed a good deal of hot-handedness, including a first down rush on 4th-and-1. Not enjoying a huge lead though, only up about 13, which isn't going to get it done with the remaining Majik Men out there.

1:35 - Very cool, the US Open is coming up on CBS when the Broncos-Rams game ends. This blog loves the first NFL week because of this. Instead of having Vikings-Lions on one network, and Scott Hamilton's Stars On Ice on the other, we get Packers-Bears and Roddick-Federer on the other. This blog is really liking Jimmy Connors as a coach, so hopefully Roddick can score the major upset.

1:51 - Some commercial talk. This blog doesn't usually see network TV, so it ends up missing a few mainstream commercials here and there except during football season. This blog does enjoy finding commercial actors that are in multiple commercials, since there seems to be a ton that overlap. Most recent finding is that the dude that gets a sword thrown at his tire in the Western Union commercial also is part of Hungry Bruno's training team in the Taco Bell commercial. Also, the yes-man in the Southwest "fare ding" commercial has been in a ton, most recently a Domino's commercial.

1:59 - Javon Walker drops what would have been a tough catch in coverage. Dan Dierdorf's comment: "You will not see that again."

2:00 - On the next play, Javon Walker drops another pass. Great work, Dan. This blog has seen commentators' stupid comments get burned before, but never so quickly.

2:33 - Tatum Bell has inexplicably taken over as Denver's back of choice. Not surprisingly, after Mike Bell led them to a touchdown, Tatum's turn only produced a field goal.

2:34 - Just checked out this blog's free, no-prize league, and Kournikovas II are getting their butts kicked. This isn't particularly great considering this blog is one of only 2 experienced fantasy league players in the league, and the most experienced of those 2. Oh well, this blog figures blaming it on a salary cap is probably the best way to play this. This blog hates salary caps. Market inefficiencies only create problems.

2:59 - Fantastic commercial out is the TGI Fridays add with the ditzes on the vowel diet. They can only eat asparagus because it starts with a U. They love Usparagus. This blog now also loves Usparagus.

3:01 - Oh yeah, Seattle just beat Detroit on a last-second field goal by Josh Brown. After the first 2 blocks, that was probably some sweet redemption to get the next 3 in a 9-6 game. Fox switched to Browns-Saints. This Reggie Bush stuff is really hyped a lot. Last year, there would be no chance a Browns-Saints games would go national, even if it were a last-second field goal attempt. This year, they switch to it, and immediately go to the Reggie Bush montage. This blog is going to predict Reggie Bush shatters the all-time Rookie Record for montages, breaking the previous record of Nate Robinson from the slam dunk contest alone.

3:04 - Montage #2. Couldn't even finish the last post before they broke it out. This blog has been tuned in to Bush's game for 5 minutes. Bush hasn't even played a down in that time span, but still 2 montages.

3:07 - Saints win 19-14. Zzzzz. This is the first of Sean Payton's 13 career coaching wins in 3 seasons. Good thing we have Curt Menefee to recap.

3:13 - Rams win 18-10. When Marc Bulger is kneeling the ball, this blog notices its point total going down because of negative rushing yards. This blog had set up the league that way. Doh!

3:14 - Fox changes from the postgame show to Packers-Bears. Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan (maybe not Tim Ryan, some scrub, this blog doesn't know, doesn't care) are doing the game. These guys must have had 10 Packer games last year. Watching the Packers lose is bad. Watching the Packers lose with Sam Rosen describing the action is infinitely worse.

3:20 - A big thumbs up to the new graphics for the telestrator. Instead of the 5-year-old's scribble they normally have, Fox has gotten the drawings to come to a point and look like a stylized graphic. Very cool.

3:21 - Packers go down 7-0 as some unknown burns one of the Packers' unknown DBs. Packers are now officially eliminated from the post-season. Mike McCarthy appears to be deciding which menu item to select from the McDonald's breakfast menu. Too bad they don't serve defense all day.

3:25 - CBS shows a Reggie Bush montage disguised as Saints-Browns highlights.

3:26 - Packers just punted. Did they even run a play? Maybe McCarthy just figured, "best to be safe on this, let's just punt it before we lose 10 yards."

3:29 - After all early games have gone final, this blog is up 72.28-45.80. This lead will last through the late games, because no Kournikovas or Majik Men are in the late games, but Sunday and Monday night games will probably chip into this. Pun City's dubious of its likelihood of winning.

3:31 - Roddick vs. Federer montage is on CBS to preview the US Open Final. This blog is going to watch it for a while here until Federer decides, "Screw it, I'm going to stop toying with this guy, I've got a plane to catch." Projected final: 7-6, 6-1, 6-0. Federer.

3:33 - Have the Bears even run the ball yet? They sure haven't needed to. Packers pass defense is a cross between a sieve and a matador.

3:34 - Bears hand off to Thomas Jones. Runs for -4.

3:35 - Nick Barnett intercepts Rex Grossman's lame duck to the end zone. Even the Packers defense can look good against Rex Grossman. Why isn't Brian Griese starting?

3:38 - A little revival for Kournikovas II here. Moved up from 10th to 7th. Still not ahead of 5 of the 6 teams this blog knows. Maybe He Hate Me and Philip Rivers will come out swinging tomorrow and make up for Chris Simms' unbelieveable -20 performance.

3:50 - Tiger Woods showed up to support Roger Federer. That's kinda cool, kinda bizarre. This blog likes that two giants of their respective sports have an appreciation for each other. This blog isn't too thrilled that Woods isn't rooting for the American in this match. Federer holds serve, 1-0.

3:52 - Bears kick a field goal to go up 10-0. Packer possessions are like J.D. Walsh in a commercial: Blink and you might miss them.

3:55 - Federer breaks to go up 2-0. Ouch. Roddick seems insistent on out-bashing Federer every point. This despite the fact that Federer has won every bash contest so far. If Roddick doesn't start up some serve-and-volleying or some major drop shots, he's not going to win a game.

4:00 - Federer holds to go up 3-0. Favre is 3 inches short on 4th-and-inches. A bad sequence for this blog's preferred competitors. Packers could challenge the spot, Pun City supposes. McCarthy probably too busy enjoying his Egg McMuffin though.

4:05 - Federer breaks, 4-0. This is a massacre. This blog thinks that Roger is putting on a show because Tiger's in the house. Jimmy Connors is re-thinking this whole "I want to coach" idea. Maybe if Federer was looking though....

4:07 - Federer up 5-0.

4:08 - Roddick with a dominant, out-of-nowhere service game after some questionable leaning gestures from Connors. Coaching's technically not allowed, but Jimmy just leaned one way and that motion in itself seems to have sparked Roddick. Still 1-5 though.

4:12 - Roddick somehow breaks at 15. 2-5 and Roddick has some momentum here. Connors may have had the greatest lean in tennis history there.

4:18 - And Federer breaks back. 6-2. McCarthy wastes a challenge on an obvious fumble. On a positive note, the Bears are stuffed for a 4-yard loss on a ridiculous-looking halfback option.

4:20 - This blog heads to its parents' place for some home cooking and the 2nd half of the Packer game. Roddick's showing some life now though, so hopefully this blog can catch some of that match as well. Federer apparently is 102-4 when winning the first set.

Pun City's Checkers Speech on Rally Monkeys

Pun City recently got the chance to visit Rally's Drive-In in Columbus, OH. The views and events expressed are inspired by actual events.

Rally's is also known as "Checkers Drive-In" in some regions. This is not unlike the Hardee's/Carl's Jr. relation in a separate franchise. Rally's was founded in 1985 in Louisville, KY. Currently, it is based in Tampa, FL. In 1999, it had merged with Checkers, which had been founded in Mobile, AL in 1986. This blog would say that move was essentially the "UPN merges with WB" of Fast Food.

This is a very new member of the Fast-Food fraternity, but that's cool. The business is fairly new, and they clearly had other restaurants to learn from before they started. This site figures their niche is the "Double Drive-In," where each side of the building has a separate drive-thru. They claim to have "walk-up windows" at each location, but this blog didn't notice this at the location it reviewed. However, it was very easy to walk up to the Drive Thru window for service when needed. The chain also bills itself as "The official Drive Thru of Nascar," for what that's worth.

Pros: Excellent chili. This is a weird opener, but this blog had chili there, and it was fantastic. A very positive part of the experience. Burgers have tomatoes on them, which don't cost extra. This is increasingly difficult to find. Easy enough to get the excess ingredients (mayo, lettuce) taken off the burger. Service excellent and unphased by condiment requests and walk-up request for a soda refill. Very affordable pricing. This blog was able to get a burger value meal, chili, and a milkshake for under $6.00 total. Among the values were a 69-cent milkshake deal during weeknight dinner hours, and 99-cent chili for the same times. Though there was no indoor seating, the location did not pull a "Sonic" and virtually force you into tipping a carhop. Only drive-thru is an option, and this does not require tipping. Pun City's chicken correspondent gave the restaurant's poultry options very high marks, among the top 3 in non-chicken-centric chains. Outstanding soda options. Dr. Pepper, Cherry Coke, and Coca-Cola were all available at the location this blog visited. This is the best selection of non-diet dark sodas this blog has found in a Fast Food chain. Throw in Mello Yello and Sprite, and that's an all-star cast of beverages. Only a Cola-War defying offering of RC Cola or Wild Cherry Pepsi in addition to these could have made for a better soda experience. Realistically though, Rally's stands alone as the soda champion of Fast Food.

Cons: Burgers are not of the highest quality. If the meat quality improved, this blog would be willing to pay extra for it. The rest of the burger ingredients were good, so a lot of potential if they upgraded the quality of their meat. Their "famous fries" are spicy, which is not this blog's preference. The fries were okay for seasoned fries, but they should also offer regular fries. This proved to be a slight detraction from the experience. Lack of indoor seating is also annoying. Luckily the weather was nice and it wasn't an issue this time, but otherwise eating at the location is not the best option. This also could come in to play if trying to procure a free refill or two. Sitting in a Rally's parking lot is not the ideal scenario for dining comfort. This blog very recently discovered there are 3 Checkers locations within about 20 miles of Pun City's home location, but anything outside of these 3 and you're talking at least a 60-minute drive. Only 30 locations are even within 550 miles of this blog, and the closest Rally's is 65 miles out.

Overall Ranking: 6.5 out of 10 Fryers. Major points lost on the burger quality. Service was great, but this is easier to maintain when they don't need to interact with many customers for more than 5 seconds at a time. They don't pretend to be a sit-down restaurant, but it would be nice to have the option during inclement weather. Soda, chicken, and chili are the strengths of their point total. Inability to mix sodas is a slight disappointment also, and this is again due to the lack of indoor choices.

Burger-Only Ranking: 3.5 out of 10 Fryers. This is sad, they really need to improve only the meat. Unfortunately, that's like saying that the Chernobyl nuclear plant just needs to improve its air quality. For a 99-cent burger, you somehow get less than what you pay for. Jack the price up to $1.39, pay for the higher-quality meat, and this could easily get to an 8. That would likely improve the overall ranking to about 8 or 8.5 right there.

Want to see how Rally's stacks up against other Fast Food spots Pun City has reviewed?

Click Here for: Culver's
Sonic Drive-In
McDonald's
White Castle
Wendy's
In-N-Out Burger
Jack In The Box

(Holy crud, this blog hasn't done Burger King yet! Gotta get on that.)

Pun City Presents The Slop Ten

This blog sincerely apologizes, but it's in no condition to post tonight.

This site's top 10 weak excuses are:

10. Because of the Labor Day holiday, it feels like a Monday, so this blog really doesn't have to post until tomorrow!

9. This blog's Fantasy Football draft is tomorrow, so last-minute preparation takes precedence.

8. Did not play tennis earlier this evening, as is this blog's normal Tuesday custom. This blog normally requires the tennis to get creative juices flowing, and basketball wasn't cutting it.

7. Worn out from long day of dealing with unruly fantasy league owners in ridiculous and somehow heated "Determine draft order today vs. Let Computer Randomize it Tomorrow" debate.

6. Phonograph took a 19-day hiatus, why can't Pun City?

5. Pun City has no wife to fill in for it.

4. Having a difficult time recovering from being accused of having a trunkful of candles at work today. (A virtually baseless rumor that had apparently persisted for over 1 year).

3. Want to make the new fast food review of Rally's really awesome.

2. Distracted by ESPN Classic's "Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Peyton Manning for Not Winning the Big Game."

1. Had to pay bills, an endeavor which must take at least 5 hours according to the creator of this site.

So yes, this blog will be back on Thursday or Friday with a full-scale review of Rally's.