Yeah, I didn’t finish the fast food blog series, deal with it!
Fantasy baseball season started, my laptop crapped out, and I just didn’t care enough to finish it. I had Shake Shack winning it all, by the way.
Now what you’re really here for! The fine folks over at FantasyPros.com have a league analyzer, which projects the expected outcome for the season based on the draft.
Here’s where we stand, as of September 1st – Week 0:
A bounty of add/drops, trades, and of course – unfortunate injuries is bound to change this projected outcome obviously.
Welcome to the 2019 season! Adams – we’re coming for your throne.
Welcome to entry number two in my fast food/fast casual bracket challenge! If you missed the first entry of the series, bang it here to get caught up.
All caught up? Cool – let’s move on.
This entry’s region is the third strongest of the four in my model (Mac & Dick McDonald were weakest). As we move forward, each region actually gets tougher to grade. This is why I developed my four point scale – to pursue a more accurate seeding of all 64 establishments.
Grading Scale Recap
I will be weighing menu offerings, price points, quality of marketing, and quality of food in each matchup. Each category will be given a score 1-5, 5 being the best, 1 being the worst.
I will then “blend” the four categories together using the uber complex method of =average in Excel to get a total score.
By using this slightly more objective approach, I feel I am able to give each restaurant (especially those I haven’t visited) a fair shot to survive and advance!
I scouted one of tonight’s competitors pre-blog – it’s safe to say Chick-Fil-A lives up to the hype. The wife and I definitely leverage location advantage – this particular location is a mere 4.2 miles away from our apartment.
Chick-Fil-A – Framingham, MA
I’m a sucker for some fried chicken. Luckily, from a menu perspective they are fairly diversified. One of the stronger all around seeds in the tournament, this place will be sticking around for further evaluation later on in this series. It’s time to drag another establishment through the mud fairly rate a lesser known competitor for the folks at home.
Upon further review, it appears this is a sandwich shop. Now, maybe I’m just too much of a neophyte in the food review game. Totally fair to suggest.
I think, however, it’s probably a reasonable business decision to maybe not name your place directly after a popular transit hub? With an average of 22.9 Twitter followers per reported storefront location, we clearly have some issues here:
That’s 6,878 / 300, folks. Not a great ratio, for sure. As an aside, I’m absolutely willing to believe Josh about those cookies. I’m just not stopping somewhere JUST for the cookies.
Recognizing that this place is clearly a lunch spot, I actually like the menu for what it is. A solid blend of grilled and cold subs, wraps, and salads is well diversified for the cheap lunch game. And speaking of cheap, it’s definitely good value per dollar to frequent this place.
In the end, Chick-Fil-A is just a tough draw for what is clearly (at best) a mid-major player in the fast food game.
Welcome to Moe’s! Simple, direct, effective marketing by this southwestern food chain – Moe’s scores far better in my book than yesterday’s Chipotle.
I’ve never had a bad experience in my few trips to this place. The biggest hole in their game? It has to simply be the menu. I’m a consistent fella – I really, really don’t like picking and choosing my ingredients at a restaurant that builds my food in front of me.
If there’s any one restaurant Moe’s could’ve chosen to meet up with to start the tournament, it definitely would have been Jimmy John’s.
Imagine bragging that no service like Uber Eats or Postmates wants to deliver your “gourmet” sandwiches to customers:
So no one delivers this crap then, huh? Got it.
You know what the problem with fast food sandwich shops is?
The best sandwiches you order out for typically come from the proverbial hole-in-the-wall place back home. Nostalgic reflection on the sandwich orders of yesteryear is a drug we all chase, after all. Regional bias be damned, I have no recollection of any positive memories involving Jimmy John’s.
I just can’t give them any semblance of a bump into relevance in this tournament as a result.
Culver’s surprised the hell out of me. A native Bostonian, I can say with confidence I’ve never encountered, nor heard of this place before. Some of the places in this bracket have at least achieved a somewhat mythical pop culture status, entering each of our collective brains at one point or another through some form of media.
Not Culver’s! My very first experience with this place was via search engine. And damn it, I was not disappointed – at all.
Welcome to delicious is right! Those cheese curds! I’m VERY intrigued.
We’re on the fast track to an all out battle in the Sweet 16 between Culver’s and Chick-Fil-A, folks. I’ll just leave it there for now.
As far as Boston Market goes… I mean, I’ve heard of it. I’ve driven by one – many times. I’ve even eaten near it. I’ve just never gone inside.
The rotisserrie I like in my life is more of the fantasy baseball variety – not chicken. To be fair to fans of the place, this is definitely more of a family-oriented dinner joint – two things I strongly dislike. (I’ll let you decide which two things out of family, dinner, and joints. Your choice!)
Good options on the menu to choose from, at least.
Ah, Domino’s. Remember that whole our pizza sucks campaign? Yeah, apparently that’s still true – they dropped the pizza from their name and diversified into other food types to try and hide this fact from you by 2019.
I have to admit, the menu is surprisingly rich with options I didn’t think they had. That aside, I still can’t see myself trading money for more Domino’s at any future point in my life. With so many options to choose from (both in this bracket and in general), I feel comfortable with one of my many life mottoes – life’s too short to settle for Domino’s.
A lot more available here than I realized. For that, hat’s off to Domino’s. That’s about all I give them, though.
You know what’s a great sign of a brand that has a really strong fan base? A merchandise line!
Torchy’s Tacos not only looks appetizing upon first glance, but they sell some pretty intriguing looking t-shirts:
I’m a sucker for good merchandise. You don’t produce merchandise if you have zero real fans, just a fact of life.
Since they did enough to move on, Torchy’s Tacos true evaluation will wait for my next trip through the No Sundays bracket.
Let’s address a little film called Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle. You see, for better or worse, this dropped during an extremely impressionable time in young Rooney’s life – as a 15 year old, there were easily a lot of jokes I pretended to understand (as one does at that age).
The biggest thing this movie did? It helped grow the legend of White Castle sliders for a generation of millennials – although I’m pretty sure we were still called Gen Y at that point. Anyway, I digress.
Little Caesar’s was featured in a rhyme by Cardi B last year:
I’m fairly confident this YouTuber transcribed this very incorrectly, but whatever.
That’s really the extent of my knowledge on the place, though. Our good friend, reigning champ Fence Post Malone wrote about a recent visit to a Little Caesar’s in the league chat at one point, as well. This all has absolutely nothing to do with their food – because I want nothing to do with their food.
Fast food pizza faces a lot of the same challenges I referenced with sandwich shops above – it’s far easier to get a good pizza from quite literally anywhere. I can’t see myself choosing Little Caesar’s as a meal – ever.
Subway is the king of the crappy assembly line food business model. The thing that gives them a slight bump? They do give you some pre-packaged options to choose from.
You can walk into one and order the Black Forest Ham on wheat and pretty much go on autopilot as a customer. That’s something I do like, here.
Easy to understand menu options at Subway, a tolerable assembly line based food business.
Subway also benefits from really friendly pricing compared to its competitors in the category for me. While its a bit of a weird “race to the bottom” to offer the best poor quality food for an affordable price, it’s a race they are, in fact, winning.
This bracket is littered with fried chicken specialty shops.
Church’s definitely gets hurt in my book by the fact that I’ve got many comparable options graded highly. There’s probably a fatigue factor at play for me, here. It would take a stunningly strong review to get me to consider this place as an option.
Limited research suggests it may also even be a bit cost prohibitive compared to other places in the category.
Another fried chicken shop in the Chick-Fil-A region? Yikes. Tough seeding.
Pizza that shills faux patriotism is probably the worst type of pizza. Not to worry! Even if that feels politically biased to you, I can assure you that this pizza straight up just looks like cardboard, as well:
Is that real pizza that looks fake? If it is, is that somehow worse than being fake pizza for pictures?
I’d bet heavily on one thing to be a real hoot in Arlen, Texas – a burger shop like Cookout!
Hank Hill would absolutely rave about the quality of this place to his old pals Bill and Boomhauer. It just all makes sense. If there’s one thing that pairs well with propane and propane accessories, its a well grilled hamburger.
Place just screams small town America.
Pretty much any burger place was taking down Papa John, here.
One of the most underrated cultural phenomenons in mid-March? Why, the emergence of various pop culture “bracket challenges” thanks to the NCAA tournament, of course!
Making the rounds on social media this past week (and covered extensively in the latest episode of the MIPPAcast) is the Fast Food Bracket Challenge.
In this series, I will be posting my own round-by-round results based on a complex model I developed for this exercise.
The Model: Explained
I will be weighing menu offerings, price points, quality of marketing, and quality of food in each matchup. Each category will be given a score 1-5, 5 being the best, 1 being the worst.
I will then “blend” the four categories together using the uber complex method of =average in Excel to get a total score.
By using this slightly more objective approach, I feel I am able to give each restaurant (especially those I haven’t visited) a fair shot to survive and advance!
Here’s the aforementioned bracket template:
These write-ups are going to be fairly dense. Accurately weighing restaurants against each other and choosing accordingly is a complex task, not to be taken lightly. Actual livelihoods are at stake, here.
The dozens of you who end up reading this may choose to spend your time and money at one of these locations based solely on these power rankings, after all. I’m not the hero you want for this task; surely, however, I am the hero you need.
You should read each of these pieces carefully before investing in a hero of your own (that’s a sandwich joke, folks).
The Series: How Will This Work?
I will be going through each of the eight (8) round one matchups for each region.
After that, I’ll revisit each region and go through the final seven (7) matchups that crown a regional champion. Then, the much-awaited Final Four will be the final article in the series. In total, there will be nine (9) posts in this series for you to ignore completely. How fun!
First up, the upper left quadrant of the bracket.
Mac & Dick McDonald Region – Round One
#1 McDonalds vs. #16 Jollibee
First and foremost, I literally had zero-point-zero idea what a Jollibee was as of this morning. According to the Google Machine, this Filipino-based international chain is “on the come up” here in the states.
McDonald’s, as we know, is a staple of the American fast food ecosystem. It truly has it all – a powerhouse menu for all three meals, solid price points, good marketing, and decent food.
With Jollibee, I was similarly impressed with the range of options on their menu. I think this is a restaurant I would find myself choosing to try based on that alone. According to one resource, the prices look relatively affordable – suggesting decent value per dollar.
Their website is fairly top notch, which suggests a really strong effort to invest in marketing. Adding spaghetti to the fast food mix? That’s a risk that resonates with me in a super positive way.
Fast Food with Spaghetti? In!
While I like McDonald’s, I simply don’t love it. A bizarre choice to move away from their super iconic cast of characters over the years really hurts their brand equity for me.
McDonald’s characters were good, why’d they go away?
I’m starting the series off with a bananas upset for you as a result; these two tied on average score, but I’d bet Jollibee simply has better food.
Alright, I’m going to catch heat for this take. Are you a restaurant? Are you a convenience store? Or a gas station? Wait – you’re all of those? Sorry – I’m out.
If you try to please everyone, you please no one. I’m not buying my breakfast, lunch, or dinner at a gas station that also sells Juul pods. I’m just classy like that, I guess.
Is it gas? Is it food? Can I buy vape cartridges and a sandwich? Ehhhh. Pass.
Since I have to pick a winner, I’ll go with the higher seed here, but both of these concepts earned straight 1’s from me across the board and tied for DFL (dead f—ing last). The winner here isn’t making it out of Round 2.
Winner: #8, Wawa
#4 Whataburger vs. #13 Quizno’s
Whataburger appears to be the total package. A true four-tool player in the fast food bracket game, they own an elite mixture of high quality menu options, great pricing, top-notch marketing, and very appealing looking food. They’re going to be a tough out in this tournament, for sure.
Quizno’s is ass. There’s really no other way to say it. When I was growing up in Quincy, there was a Quizno’s near my childhood home, located near a Walgreens pharmacy. I believe this shopping area I’m remembering burned down eventually. I blame Quizno’s.
Where the Quizno’s used to be. It’s long gone.
Does that matter, here? Not particularly, I just felt like sharing. On the rare occasion I found myself trading my hard earned money allowance for one of their sandwiches, I was always disappointed.
The lesson? I’m not a very big fan of sandwich specialty shops. They are going to have a tough, tough time in my bracket.
I’ll save the detailed Whataburger analysis for one of their future matchups in this series (spoiler alert – there’s going to be a few).
Ah, beautiful. One of the finest matchup concepts in this entire series for me is grading two establishments I’ve never had the opportunity to try against one another.
This is where the four-point scale becomes critical – I should be able to assess the relative strength of one chain’s profile against another’s and pick a winner we all feel good about.
Panda Express looks like a really appetizing American Chinese food concept. For me, I’m not a huge fan of Chinese food as a category, so it’s hard for me to rate it extremely high on menu or on food. Pricing looks really friendly, though.
Their website was also a pleasant browsing experience; it provided me the information I wanted in a convenient fashion, and made me feel like I would definitely shop there if given the chance.
Potbelly had a tough go of it for me. The fact that my first glance of the menu suggested it was super narrow – just combos of sandwiches, soups, salads and macaroni was a bit of a turn off for me.
When you land on this page, and click menu, your eyes are drawn to the middle of the screen – took me awhile to realize there was a bigger submenu above. Not great.
This cost Potbelly some marketing points, as it was tough to see through their menu that there’s a diverse range of options as a result. No second chances at a first impression being given out here from me. Out on Potbelly!
Dairy Queen never impressed me as a lad – their relentless commitment to saying they aren’t fast food also loses them a ton of points in my book. They should basically be eliminated from the field entirely for this absurd denial of reality.
You’re fast food. Stop it.
I’ve never had the opportunity to visit a Carl’s Jr./Hardees, but any business that takes a risk with Froot Loops mini donuts is clearly run by some creative people who wish to win not only the stomachs, but the hearts and souls of their customers. This is an easy call, here.
Remember when I said sandwich places were going to have a tough time in this bracket? Enter Arby’s to bust that up (at least for one round). Despite being given a rather precise estimate for how long it would take me to arrive at one, I have never had a desire to visit one of these establishments.
It took me far more than 19 minutes to do all this work, and I’d still do it again instead of going to an Arby’s.
Their pricing and marketing, however, is really sharp. I had to award them more points for having affordable options that are also messaged really well to their target audience.
Taco Cabana’s aggressively hot pink color scheme made me feel attacked – rattled, I graded them pretty harshly. As you can see, the menu attempts to target a lot of different meal types, so they deserve a decent menu score.
Pretty decent range of options, here.
Huge deduction for marketing (again that color scheme is atrocious) really brought them down here. Taco’s are a really hard food item to screw up – their pricing feels okay, though. While I enjoy tacos, I don’t crave them incessantly.
Arby’s edged out the hot pink Taco Cabana by the slimmest of margins in my model. I can’t see myself visiting either of these any time soon, though.
I have absolutely not a thing to say about Jersey Mike’s in this space. I’ll save that for the next round.
Panera Bread’s menu is littered with actual food you would find in a hospital food court. Does anyone really even want any of this stuff? Of course not – but it’s the only place in town with soups, sandwiches, salads and breakfast items for many people.
This photo (I think) is making its second appearance on this blog! Is it Panera, or Fyre Festival? Am I being unfair? Maybe. I strongly dislike Panera.
Perhaps my bias is showing, here. There was a Panera Bread near my high school, and I guess you could argue I visited it far too many times to ever want to set foot in another one again. The only redeeming product they have? The Bacon Turkey Bravo – one of the best sandwiches known to God and man.
I’m just not trying to spend more than $10 on an actual deli sandwich I could make at home quite easily.
Chipotle is whack. I am not a fan of the whole “assembly line” approach when it comes to food across the board. The southwestern style of food just doesn’t do it for me, either.
If they had more pre-assembled menu options that I could simply order without having to go through the process of actually constructing my own final item, I might feel differently. I also always feel like I spent way too much money when I go to one.
The food is high quality, but Chipotle’s inability to handle their various PR disasters effectively destroys their marketing value in my eyes.
Without even considering what an A&W is, Chipotle is dead to me.
Chipotle Grades (Overall Rank, 39)
Menu – 3.0 Pricing – 2.2 Marketing – 3.0 (deducted 1 point from 4.0) Food – 4.3
Score – 3.13
Winner – #15, A&W Restaurants
Check in tomorrow evening for the winners in the No Sundays Region. Will anyone unseat Chick-Fil-A? We’ll see!
It’s an annual tradition unlike any other – the Patriots win the Super Bowl, and a parade takes place on Boylston and Tremont Streets in downtown Boston.
Linebacker Elandon Roberts hoists a Lombardi trophy. (I took this photo! #humblebrag)
As the last duck boat goes by, it takes with it the last gasp of football season. Daydreams begin of crisp fall afternoons and evenings, where the local gridiron heroes return to woo us once more spring football?
That’s right folks, this past weekend a brand new professional football league took the nation by storm. The Alliance of American Football began its inaugural season on Saturday night with a literal bang:
The hit that San Diego Fleet QB Mike Bercovici received in San Antonio likely did enough to keep Americans interested in a product that is definitively much better than the absence of football altogether.
Could it even be more captivating than the NBA? Initial results are intriguing:
Sources: In its debut night last night, @theaaf beat the NBA on ABC in head-to-head overnight ratings:
Is this football going to be as high quality as the NFL product we’ve come to know and love each weekend? Smart money says absolutely not.
Professional football, however, is a sport that pulls its best athletes from 130 Division 1 FBS and 125 Division 1-AA NCAA programs – programs who regularly produce hundreds of alums who never sniff a minute of professional action on the gridiron.
Logic shows that there’s definitely room in this country for a developmental league – one that gives players a second chance at proving they belong at the pro level. One Pro Football Hall of Famer hopes it succeeds:
Congrats to @TheAAF on a successful – well received – & entertaining opening night! It was fun being a part & look forward to playing a role moving forward… players need this league to get a 2nd chance or show ppl they have what it takes!! #ImThePosterBoyForLeagueslikeThis
A funny thing happened to me today while walking along the Breakheart Reservation. My Podcast, Business Wars, ended. I grabbed my phone and turned on the Podcast Addict app and hit refresh. A little notification appeared above the MIPPAcast logo. I added it to my playlist and continued my walk.
Listening to myself, and others chat about MIPPAchat, made me chuckle…but it also made me think. How lucky are we to live in the age of podcasts? It’s not just because our FF league produces such great content, but it is also because of the options we have for our listening pleasure.
I’ve driven to Houlton, Maine on numerous occasions. It is way up County on the Canadian border. It is basically the end of I-95 and in the midst of potato country. Along the lonely highway, there are no cell phone towers and radio reception is bleak. Satellite might work, but who pays for that, right! On my most recent journey up that way, I didn’t worry. I pulled over in Bangor and downloaded a few episodes of my favorite cast…and then I went north again. A similar scenario popped up while White Water Rafting with Eric Cyphers. I was about to go off grid, so I downloaded Serial and continued my trip. Two summers ago, I drove to Key West. Podcasts accompanied my journey.
I love TV. I am a huge fan of blogs. I think that Podcasts are the best form of media today and I believe nothing supports the concept of individual freedom more than a man and his podcast playlist. In the middle of the September, in 2015, I posted an innocent enough query about podcasts:
My first step into the podcasting world.
Of all the suggestions that day, it was Lore that resonated the most. It is a short episode podcast where the host explores the origins of folklore stories. He is from the north shore and there are definitely more New England stories on the show. One of my favorites dealt with HH Holmes.
Shortly after finding Lore, I discovered the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. I wanted to find a podcast to help me develop my conspiracy class further and this weekly science and critical thinking based podcast struck a chord with me. I ended up kind of binge-listening to the 700+ episodes. It only took me about 3.5 years to catch up. I am actually a Patreon supporter of the SGU.
lofAn old attempt at video; it doesn’t do the show justice.
Lore and the Skeptics Guide are among my favorites, but I’ve tried out many others:
Criminal – Short episodes, these usually focus on obscure crimes scattered across the US. Some are unsolved mysteries, some are amazing stories of redemption, and others are more forensic in nature. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-15-hes-neutral
Small Town Murder – I just started to listen to two comedians retelling the horrific murders that occur in America’s smallest towns. Every episode begins with a disclaimer…if you’ve got a weak stomach and don’t think humor and murder go together, just skip this one.
Hub History – Another new one for me. It is short episodes that deal with untold stories of Boston’s past. They also have a “this week in Boston” segment.
I could go on and on, but its getting late. I have about 5-6 different podcasts queue’d up on my podcast app. They aren’t all the same type of content, but they are all me. It is amazing that I can so easily put together hours of free entertainment and make them available to me 24 hours a day anywhere across the world. I literally have listened to the SGU in four continents and over 20 countries. While the internet is a gateway to these podcasts, the casts themselves have revolutionized the way we tell stories, the way we hear the news, and the way we educate ourselves.
The MIPPAcast hasn’t yet become the powerful multi-national conglomerate that it is destined to become, but it has allowed me to connect with my friends in an exciting new platform. I wish I found podcasts earlier than 2015, but I am glad I eventually made the leap.
What are your favorite podcasts? What do you think of mine? Leave some comments below:
I believe it was Aesop Rock, on his side project with Tobacco, that first said, “A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This edition of A MIPPA Retrospective dives deep into the hairy subject of the names, scents, and stories associated with our fine divisions. It isn’t for the faint-hearted…so read with caution.
The MIPPA Fantasy Football League is a 14 team keeper league with two divisions; Mints and Sundowner. Most of our readers are probably aware that these divisional names come straight out of Canada.
A Canadian Classic.
Many moons ago, a group of friends embarked on a journey to watch the Patriots play the Buffalo Bills. This group stayed in Niagara Falls to save a little money and to gamble a bit too. While driving down Lundy’s Lane, the group came across a fine establishment for Gentlemen. This place was called Mints:
Mints bills itself as Niagara’s Premier Gentlemen’s Club. It is perfect for VIP Parties and provides bottle service. They feature Niagara’s Most Beautiful Women in an upscale and relaxing setting. They currently are offering a $5.00 discount on Friday and Saturday evenings if you bring their web coupon with you to the door.
Mints is a perfect reason to not trust mainstream media. The place is a shit hole. It was the first day we walked in and I am positive it is today. (Bizzy, they have an upstairs called, Peppermints….its all dudes) The women are adequate when they are on stage. It is everything s stereo-typical strip club should be. The lights are low (as to obsure the reality of the “talent”) and the music is loud. The beers come in buckets and the girls let you fuckit…well, some do…and some are enterprising young entrepreneurs. Mints has a large center stage and a VIP Private Dance section.
Quick Story #1: Billy’s Blow Job – One night at Mints, Billy comes to the crew with a smile from ear to ear. He just was propositioned by a Mints girl. She offered to give him a blow job for like $200.00. I can’t remember if he paid, but I can remember Jon informing Billy the same girl propositioned him for $50.00.
When we first stumbled on to Mints, it was a hopping place. There were tons of girls and the atmosphere was fun. I remember offering to marry one of the waitresses. My pitch was that I had available credit. We also stumbled upon a Miss Nude Canada pageant once. The crowds, the last few times, were gone and so were the girls.
The other division is named, Sundowner. It too is named after a night club:
The Downer, as they seem to be billing themselves these days, is Niagara’s Best Gentleman Club (sic). It is further down Lundy’s Lane and is much larger than Mints. The scale between the two clubs can be seen in the somewhat NSFW video promotion:
The Sundowner has a center stage and a side stage. There is also a downstairs stage for when it is extra busy. They have three different VIP Private Dance sections.
Quick Story #2: I was there one night getting a dance. The dancer stopped, and chatted with me about how disgusting the girl a few spots down from me was because she was having sex with some guy, and then my dancer continued the lap dance. When she finished, I stood to pay her and looked over towards the fornication chamber…and saw my buddy Patrick, lol. He denies he had sex.
Throughout the years, many of us have seen great changes in the Niagara nightclub scene. Some of the entertainers have even recognized us on subsequent visits. The Mints/Sundowner debate has never really taken off because of how special both are to many of us (Sundowner was a table name at one MIPPA member’s wedding). We, collectively, have spent thousands of dollars sharing good times with friends at these places.
I have never considered calculating which division has fared better in our league (I assume its the Sundowner), but I have always gotten a little chuckle out of seeing those names in print:
Regular Season results
I am not sure if I will ever make it back to my old stomping grounds. I hope too, for nostalgic reasons, and because its fun. I never mentioned to either club that we’ve used their names in our league out of concern for my own safety. The sad truth is that the two clubs are owned by different groups. I think it is the Russian Mafia that owns Mints. They run an illegal taxi service from their curb too. (Don’t ask to go to Sundowner in one of those cabs). The Downer was owned by Zelimir Rudan:
This guy is dead!
He was Serbian, or Croatian, but not necessarily a mafia guy. Rudan owned a ton of shit around Niagara (including the golf course in that video) and was considered a community leader and respected businessman. I couldn’t find any statement exonerating the Russian mafia from his death.
The times have changed on the MIPPA landscape. Most of the guys have wives and children. Their free time is limited and they don’t want to visit shitty Vegas by the Falls. The extra money they have isn’t going to Texas Hold ’em or girls who let you hold em. For those without kids, most lived too far away or are too cheap to get passports. The classic appeal for the Canadian ballet just isn’t there anymore.
There has even been MIPPAcast talk of disbanding the divisions (It might have been at the owner’s meeting). I hope that doesn’t happen. The argument is that the divisions are stacked, making the league have less parity than it should. If the divisions disappear in function, I hope they survive nominally. I’d hate to forget about all of the good times in Canada. I hope we make it back one day to do the Lundy Lane 500.
I listen to a few podcasts now; Skeptics Guide to the Universe, Hub History, Small Town Murder, and the MIPPAcast. It is probably obvious that I didn’t immediately press play for the most recent MIPPAcast as I was on the marathon two hour long show. With that said, I began listening to it this week. A small snippet caught my attention.
Seth was ranting about almost calling a Philadelphia radio station to protest the old trope that the Patriots are cheaters. It resonated even more when I heard a clip from Glen Ordway interviewing some other jamoke from Philadelphia radio.
MIPPA Boys, with their buds (including Pete Shepard). Photo by Glen Ordway
During the interview, the Philly-fraud joined in the chorus of morons whose only rebuke to Patriot glory is by declaring that the Patriots are cheaters. At DeMolay LTC, there is an advisor from Connecticut that happens to be a Jets fan. On Facebook, or face to face, this guys believes in a massive league-wide conspiracy to help the Patriots win. Every September, at the beginning of the NFL season, this guy has some post about how the Jets might have a chance…and then, when it is finally apparent to him, he starts again on the Cheatriots.
Call me a homer, but don’t call my team cheaters without first doing a deep dive on your own team.
Some Drunk Indy fan who loved me, but hated the Pats. The Colts fans were booing when the picture was taken.
In November of 2007, I went to Indy to watch the Patriots play the Colts. It was a great game and trip. I met a ton of nice people, but I met plenty of Colts fans who accused my beloved team of cheating. This, for those who don’t remember, is the game where Indy was accused of artificially pumping crowd noise into the dome. The accusations never went anywhere, but the Patriots are the cheaters?
A Giant version of Rick Lavoie intimidates a pip squeak of a man accusing the Patriots of cheating.
After the Patriots came back in the 4th and beat Manning’s Colts, we went to the Slippery Noodle. It’s a cool bar, but I was verbally accosted by many blue jersey boys. In this instance, I think I physically threatened a small man. Needless to say, they all maintained that we broke the rules.
It’s here, where this post is taking a drastic turn.
The Patriots are cheaters. There is no doubt about it. Cheating is defined as “a person who acts dishonestly in order to gain an advantage.” The team, its coaches, its players, and even its owners (on occasion) have absolutely acted dishonestly to gain a competitive advantage. The NFL has rules. They broke the rules. They were caught. They were punished. Nothing here is a lie or falsehood. The problem is that the Patriots are not the only team that acts dishonestly to gain an advantage. They are all guilty.
The Head Coach of the Rams actively “cheating” on camera. No fine or penalty assessed.
The NFL has a ton of rules. If you break any of them, for a competitive advantage, you are literally a cheater. Normally, during the game, if you “cheat” the officials throw a flag (Sorry Saints fans). The penalty is assessed. If you commit an egregious violation of the rules, you might be fined or suspended. There is no legal difference in McVeigh’s bum-chum than there is with Belichik’s favorite home videos or Tom’s balls. The scale of the cheating might matter to some, but they are never heard saying, “your team cheats more than my team.” Of course, the Patriots are among the least penalized (On-field) cheaters in the league over the past 20 years, so…perhaps not.
The truth is everyone is cheating. Some do it better than others, some suck at it.
My favorite artist, Aesop Rock just put out a new album, albeit a side project with producer Tobacco, known as Malibu Ken. As a self proclaimed Stan of Aes, I’ll try to remain fair on this review.
Going into this, I didn’t know too much about Tobacco. My taste mostly lie in the boom bap-Brooklyn-bass in your face beats. This album is more of a lo-fi/electronicly/high pitch at times alternative to that which was actually pleasantly surprising. It paired well with Aesop’s flow and rhyme schemes. Coming off what I believe is Aesop Rock’s best album to date, The Impossible Kid (maybe my favorite album in the last ten years,) I was a little nervous about him being able to live up to it. Looks like I had nothing to be nervous about. Although it may not touch the previously mentioned TIK or some of his other earlier work, it doesn’t have to. It is very entertaining in itself!
I think very highly of the first track Corn Maze. In fact the second verse might be the best I’ve heard penned in the last (place arbitrary number here) year or 2. It rolls into track 2, Tuesday. Although I don’t have anything professionally to say about it because I’m not a professional, it’s a very fun track and easy to listen to. With someone with severe ADHD, the next song or 2 turned into background music over my thoughts but I got sucked back in with the end of Sword Box (track 4) and keeps me entertained through Dog Years (track 5.) Track 6, Acid King, proves why Aes is the greatest story teller disguised as a rapper since maybe Slick Rick. A true story about Ricky Kasso, self proclaimed acid king, who kills a friend who stole a couple bags of drugs from him, is a masterpiece in my dumb humble opinion. The album finishes up with four more enjoyable songs, 1+1=13 probably being my favorite out of said 4.
If you’ve never heard of Aesop before this write up (wtf man!!!) then I would suggest some of his other work such as The Impossible Kid, Skelethon, Float or Beastiary (with Rob Sonic as Hail Mary Mallon) but Malibu Ken will still be enjoyable and will definitely not turn you off from becoming almost as big a fan of Aesop Rock as me. Almost
I am sitting in the family waiting room at Lahey Hospital. My Dad is getting another new knee and at the same time driving up healthcare costs for all of us. I was reflecting a little bit on this week’s MIPPAcast and I realized how right I was.
This iteration of the Patriots is the most dominant version of the Patriots ever. Don’t get me wrong, the 2007 Patriots team is probably the best Pats team ever (we discussed this on air) and the teams from 2001-2004 would definitely wreck this year’s squad. All of that, however, is irrelevant to my bold statement on the headline. In 1994, the NFL’s salary cap went into effect. That collective bargaining agreement lasted until 2009. A labor crisis ensued when that cap expired, but by 2011, a new cap was in place.
The first two phases of Patriot dominance came in the first era of cap’d football. The league, at the time of Brady’s signing, was still adjusting to this deal. Scoring Brady late in the draft happens to be the real magic of the Patriot legacy (Thanks, Bill!). Bill, not only hit big with Brady, but he was able to exploit NFL rules by focusing more on his aggressive, hard hitting, defensive squads for those early years. By diverting a higher percentage of cap money to defensive players, he was able to shut down high powered offensives throughout the early years.
Seeing what was happening, in an age where parity was supposed to ever-present, the NFL rules committee took action. They made the type of defense utilized in New England obsolete. Bill, however, saw this coming, and shifted gears to a better offensive line, a stud wide-out, and bunch of guys who were mediocre in other places. The genius, at this time, was less about balancing cap space and more about balancing egos. Welker, Moss, and Brady (among others) bought into the system. Bill’s willingness to take risks on non-clubhouse guys saved money and non-cap binding incentives helped curb some of the pride high paying players demanded. The best offense ever assembled (debatable, yes, but still true) was backed up the remains of those old defensive corps.
Then, the CBA expired.
The lockout of 2011 was a major turning point in the NFL. Players stupidly gave away arbitration rights (Brady and deflategate), but the two sides ultimately agreed. The architect that ended the lock-out was Bob Kraft….off of the heels of Myra’s death. The new cap, aimed at revitalizing “parity” also allowed for a new wave of Patriot dominance. Things are more equal now, than they had been. There are more teams showcasing a competitive edge than ever before. Even the Brown’s are looking to the future. With all of that said, the Patriots have been to three straight SuperBowls (4 out of the last 5). In this new age of the NFL, Bill has worked his magic on and off the field while Tom has done his on gameday. Bob Kraft must have seen it all coming when he gave the keys to the franchise to Bill.
In ancient Rome, you may recall, there were several great triumvirates. A trio of enigmatic Romans who shaped the empire’s future. Tom Brady, Bill Belichik, and Robert Kraft are light-years ahead of their competitors. I loved hearing the audio of Bill telling Tom that he loved him and Tom replying in kind. It is the type of emotion rarely shown in New England, but it was real. I harken back to the stories of those guys hating each other just a few seasons a go. In any family relationship, there may be arguments, but something must be said about all of that being a smokescreen. So many pundits claimed it was over. That Brady was gassed, that he was jealous of a young gun taking the mantle, that Bill wanted to move on, but Robert wouldn’t let him.
This allowed other NFL execs to take a breather. They didn’t have to outsmart the Pats anymore. True parity was coming. What they didn’t realize is that the Patriots of today don’t have to be as good as those other Championship teams, they just have to be better than their current competition…teams struggling with a parity that our triumvirate probably drew up one night in 2010. Kraft ends the lock-out…shapes new policy. Brady gets accused of cheating; sanctions come, but he, Bill, and Robert get to fight against the NFL to make other GM’s relax a bit. Patriots keep quietly winning games.
Dominance isn’t only shown on the pitch…Prove me wrong.
I spent a good part of this week watching competing documentaries on the same topic. No, I am not talking about watching episodes of Cops and LivePD. I am talking about two films that discussed the failed music festival of the century, Fyre Festival. For you noobs, here is their promo video:
This music festival was pitched as a luxury music festival for only those who could afford it. The douche who advertised it committed real fraud to bilk hundreds of rich millennial kids out of their mommy and daddy’s expense account. The dude worked with Ja Rule, but the whole thing turned belly up and a bunch of MAGA Douches’ were stranded at an airport in the Bahamas after eating cheese sandwiches.
Actual luxury meal served to a Hitler Youth Kid who spent 4k for the privilege
Now, honestly, I laughed at these two documentaries more than I would at your typical Will Ferrill joint. The images of these pretty people struggling really excited my mirth. But after careful thought, I think it is crazy that two competing documentaries about something so insignificant were made. I am tired of this trend.
It is hard to remember the first time this phenomena hit me square in the face, but it might have been Armageddon and Deep Impact (1998). The next worst example that I can think of, at the moment, is Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down (2013). In each of these examples, one more had more popular success. Armageddon is actually fairly re-watchable, while Deep Impact left no lasting impression in my mind. Olympus Has Fallen was so successful, it spawned a shitty sequel set in England (think Hellboy).
I don’t necessarily care that there is more than one documentary about this festival that flopped. I am fairly confident that I watched more than one Woodstock ’99 video, but they didn’t come out days apart from each other. Hulu produced “Fyre Fraud” and released it on January 14th. The Netflix version came on January 18th. They both had different access points and both were interesting, but seriously four days??? WTF.
Feel free to read the above link for more info, but in the meantime, I am going to continue to vent.
Why can’t we forbid filmmakers from doing this type of thing. It happens a lot, but shouldn’t. I look at the whole thing as a form of copyright infringement. If I opened a chicken wing place called, “Peckers” and forced my male waiters to wear bright shorts with a woodpecker’s face painted on the crotch, I am pretty sure Buffalo Wild Wings would still fucking suck. Hooters, however, would probably sue me. If I invented a pair of sneakers that let me inflate little airsacks in my shoes, I’d probably get a lawsuit filed against me by Dee Brown. If I emulated my entire Presidency after that of Richard Milhouse Nixon, I would probably get sued by some Federal Prosecutor, right?
What if I did any of those things in the same year as the first example? I think I would lose more than those wealthy snobs who flew to the Bahama’s even though the experience was already falling apart in front of them. I don’t know how to become an Instagram Influencer, but I do know how to write a blog that Hollywood producers might pick-up.
What is the worst example of content double-dipping you can think of? I am interested to learn more.
I totally disagree with the nod to Flight 93 and World Trade Center.
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