which superbowl quarterback would you most like to invite over for a 6-pack and a record party?

there are four teams in contention for the super bowl. i know this because a) i live and breath, 2) i turned on the television once last week, and c) i have thousands of facebook friends from both new york and wisconsin (i don't admit to knowing anyone in pittsburgh and my chicago friends have better things to do.) wisconsinites who've never heard of football, much less have ever been to green bay, are suddenly rabid packer fans, posting profile photos of green and gold jerseys with their names proudly photoshopped onto the back by a third-party application that is undoubtedly providing their home phone number and the name of their first pet to someone named giovanni in camden, new jersey.

i thought perhaps a better way to celebrate the upcoming super bowl holiday (besides enjoying the commercials and the cheese logs) would be to discuss which team's quarterback you'd most want to have sex with like to invite over for some beers and maybe to listen to some prince music in your basement.

we're lucky, because there are some fairly serious contenders here. i mean, good god, think if we had to consider one of those manning boys. okay, the young one is fine, but peyton? i hear he's nice (someone is related) but i don't wanna see him shirtless. again.

that said, ladies and gentleman, the winner: mark sanchez for the new york jets. (yah, he's won before we even started. i mean... c'mon. besides that, roethlisberger's already been in my basement and it wasn't pretty, we don't even need to talk about this guy, and the only other option is this 70's porn star.)

28 minutes on 54th & broadway

how do you get oprah, jay, and dave into the same room for half an hour or so without anyone noticing?

The spot was shot last Tuesday afternoon, under the strictest of secrecy which involved both Mr. Leno and Ms. Winfrey flying in surreptitiously to New York, and arriving incognito at the theater, while Mr. Letterman was in the midst of taping his show for that night. It also involved Jay wearing a disguise: hooded sweatshirt, glasses and faux mustache. If you happened to be on Broadway between 53rd and 54th street last Tuesday about 4:15, you might have seen a man fitting that description slip into the theater by a small entrance under the marquee.

the most exciting 12 minutes of the game

for some of us, the best part of super bowl sunday is the halftime show. billboard collects 10 of the best, including mccartney, the stones, 2004's wardrobe malfunction, and this springsteen barnburner from last year.

"i probably should have ran it...

...I don't know how far I could have gotten."

say yes to stimulation!

on sunday night, during the fourth quarter of the super bowl, thousands of tucson area comcast cable subscribers were inadvertently shown 28 seconds of porn. late in the quarter, larry fitzgerald scored to put the cardinals ahead and suddenly there's a man sitting on a sofa, unzipping his pants and "revealing his genitals." as an apology to their subscribers, comcast has offered to give $10 to each customer "who was impacted."

if someone gave me $10 every time i watched porn, i could retire by the end of the year.

"i'm no different than any other kid"

this last tuesday, when brett favre's retirement was announced, people speculated as to why he didn't hold a big splashy press conference to do it.

this afternoon, watching him sit in front of a microphone and open up his heart, not just with tears running down his face, but at times literally sobbing, a person could see why he might have chosen to delay something like this. how you could watch brett say goodbye and not cry along with him, i don't know:

"it's been everything i thought it would be, and then some. it's hard to leave...you think you're prepared for it. i've given everything i can possibly give and i don't think i have anything left. i know i can play, but i don't think i want to. and that's what it comes down to."

to my nephew brenton: take great notice of this man. this is what humility is. this is what sincerity is. this is what heart is all about.

dear jeff, pt. 3

a letter to my friend jeff ircink, of passion=truth, on this auspicious day.

dear jeff.

march forth.
move forward.
just what our friend brett did today.

i was driving to wisconsin this afternoon, listening to a program on wisconsin public radio and the topic was, of course, brett favre's retirement from professional football. and it got me thinking.

'member how, a while back, i said i thought he was hot? and super? and that he had pretty lips? well...i meant all those things. but there's more. there's an underlying reason he's so hot.

first of all, he had braces as an adult and that's hot. okay, that's out in the open.

it's because even to someone like me, who doesn't pay that much attention to professional football...who, if you look up "fair-weather fan" in the dictionary you see my high school graduation picture...who still doesn't get the whole "down" thing...even to me, brett favre is exactly what you want a sports hero to be. he is old school sports hero.

you could tell just by watching him play. he was playing football because it was so damn much fun. that's the kind of guy i want my nephew to look up to (he does.) heck, it's the kind of guy i want my nephew to be (he will.)

not that favre hasn't had his problems. i mean, i don't remember him being involved in a dog-fighting ring. but drugs? vicodin schmicodin. licked it. booze? licked that too. marriage problems? last i checked, mr. and mrs. favre are still together. (that says as much about her as it does about him, of course.)

i just wanted to tell you that even though i've teased you about your little crush on brett, i totally understand. brett favre's hotness isn't (just) about his looks, or having a killer bod, or the scruff, or...okay sorry.

it's about the kind of man he is, underneath the costume.

uniform.

and, well, the braces didn't hurt.


talk soon.

tony

p.s. that's a pretty hot picture
of him you've got on your blog.

superbowl wrap-up

last night, when the giants won the superbowl, i had to call someone. someone i thought might care. it took me a second, but the only person i could come up with was my dad. he didn't answer, so i left this message on his machine (yes, he still has a "machine"):

"hey dad. new york won the superbowl. pretty exciting, huh? not as exciting as if brett and the pack were...oh well. love ya."

i got this email from him today.

hi tone. got your call today (12 hrs after you sent it.) the pack wasn't in it, so i really didn't have a fav. the commercials sucked. the charlie brown and the coke was kinda cute. same with the bridgestone tires and the squirrels, and the bud one with dog teaching the horse. outside of those, yuk. tom petty was, well, tom petty. i've always liked his music, but to see the band perform isn't so great. oh well, what the hell do i know!! i used to watch mitch miller and lawrence welk and hee haw.

pretty much sums it up.
thanks dad.

50 inches, 13 yards, and 35 seconds

the apartment building across the street from us put their recyclable cardboard out on the sidewalk tonight. usually it's broken down boxes from fresh direct or amazon, tied up with twine in a tidy stack.

tonight, no tidy stack. one big box. one enormous box. one uber-gigantic box. in new york terms, we're talking livable. and not rent stabilized.

someone in that building just got a new 50" panasonic flat screen plasma hdtv.

two years ago, when we were looking for a new tv, we opted for a petite 26" set. we considered a 28", but in the cabinet we were going to put it in? it would have looked ridiculous. gauche, almost.

tonight however, someone in the building next door must have been overwhelmingly pleased with their decision to go with a 50" screen as they watched eli manning connect with plaxico burress for the winning touchdown in superbowl XLII, a 13-yard pass with 35 seconds remaining in the game.

okay, i copied most of that last sentence from the new york times.
but still, it was a pretty exciting game. and i bet it looked great on that tv.

and oh...sorry jeff.

it ain't easy bein' green (bay)

you think it sucks to be a packer fan tonight? try being a packer fan in new york city. and y'all know how much of a football fan i am, but i thought the packers sucked tonight. am i wrong? sorry jeff.

hot men crying

it doesn't get hotter than this.

i mean, watch this and tell me it's not hot. and what's hotter than the first guy (his name's terrell, i guess) actually crying at a news conference, is the three announcers analyzing his crying. they are so into his crying. one of 'em's even had terrell crying on his shoulder. hot!

and in reality? it's all about my home-boy (is home-boy hyphenated?) tony romo. i think terrell has a little crush on tony. jessica, you better watch out! okerrr??

dear jeff, pt. 2

jeff ircink's boyfriend brett favre looked pretty damn good yesterday against the seattle seahawks. (not that i actually watched, mind you.) this from today's milwaukee journal-sentinal:

"fans in the nfl's smallest city aren't easily fooled. they know a super bowl contender when they see one. they saw one on a snowy saturday at lambeau field."

and looky here -- my new hometown newspaper is finally paying green bay some respect. seems the fans at lambeau aren't the only ones to recognize super bowl condenters.

now as much as i'd like to see green bay whup the giants, i'm hoping they get to smack down dallas and tony romo, who hails from burlington, wisconsin -- like, two minutes from my hometown of waterford. romo -- and don't get me wrong, i'm as proud of him as my dad, who watched him play high school football -- but romo deserves to be beat simply because he's goofy enough to date jessica simpson (please.)

then...the pack (yes, i called them the pack. i just said smack down too) can meet the undefeated patriots in the super bowl and hand them their first loss of the season. wouldn't that be fun? (again...not that i'd actually watch.)

dear jeff

my friend jeff has his own blog too. it's really great.

there's about fifty times more stuff on his blog than there is on mine. widgets and gadgets and...stuff. some irish music that drives me batty. and lots of pictures of brett favre (jeff is a little obsessed with brett favre - something i totally understand.)

i sent him an email tonight, 'cause i miss him. jeff. and after writing it, i thought, "hey, why don't i post this email to my own blog?" and since i have nothing else to say right now, i'm going to. here it is:.

hey dude.

i've been thinking about you a lot lately. hope you're well.

your blog is so jam packed with stuff...i can't read it all. i love your obsession with favre though. gotta say, you know i'm not the biggest sports nut in the world, but he's a pretty hot guy. i mean hot in a gay way, too.

AND he's a pretty great guy. and pretty. man, he got some pretty lips. he got a pretty mouth, too.

I MEAN he's really inspiring. and i'm really proud. truthfully now. how seldom is it that a super-athlete like him comes along, who is not only, well...a super-athlete...but also a super human being. not super human like he can melt steel just by looking at it. but super, like...great.

he's a super, great, pretty guy, that brett favre.

and fuck those bears.

now, if i had some balls, i'd copy this email and post it to my blog.

come visit soon.
and happy new year friend.

tony