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Unmitigated verbal brilliance

While watching the Chicago Bears demolish the Seattle Seahawks on NBC’s Sunday night NFL broadcast, I had to endure countless advertisements for one of NBC’s new series. The series is called Friday night lights; it’s a fictional series about high school football. Based on the advertisements, it looks to be a soap opera about high school students (who actually are 20-something actors, of course); I do not plan to watch it.

However, one of the advertisements sought relevance to the NFL broadcast by featuring NFL players talking about high school football. In that advertisement, Trent Dilfer uttered an outstanding statement: “When I think about high school football, I think of what happens on Friday night.” I may be going out on a limb with this, but I bet he thinks of what happens on Sunday afternoon when he thinks of the NFL, too.

In defense of Dilfer, he probably said more than the quick quote NBC aired; it’s just too fun to overlook.

Also, during the game itself, John Madden told us, the viewing audience, “You know, they say winning is a great deodorant.”  That says it all, doesn’t it?

In every game, be this our aim, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y: Week 6 vs. Saline

Chelsea High School Football record through week 6: 13-5 (1-2 week 6; 11-4 SEC).

It was a very rough week for Chelsea football. The freshmen lost, and then the JV won a highly entertaining game, so Thursday was fairly standard. But it stopped there.

The varsity game against Saline had loomed large on the schedule since the beginning of the year. Both teams entered the year with high expectations, and both had maintained those expectations by staying undefeated through week 5. There was quite a bit of anticipation for the meeting of two of the area’s top teams. Unfortunately, though the game stayed close for much of the evening, Saline left with a 37-28 victory; Chelsea’s offense hit a lull it couldn’t afford, and the defense simply couldn’t make the big stops it needed. Those shortcomings were tough to overcome against a good team like Saline.

However, the loss on the scoreboard was not the most painful loss of the evening. On a second and goal play in the fourth quarter, quarterback Seelbach scrambled and met two defenders at the goal line. He did not get up after the collision. After several minutes, the trainers helped him off the field, but he required significant assistance, and he put no weight on his left leg. Later, we learned the difficult news: he had suffered damage to his knee, and his season was done.

This is hard news not just for the team — it is always at least initially difficult to lose a starting quarterback — but also for Seelbach himself. He is a senior, and this injury means his high school football career is done too early. I never like to see a senior’s season end prematurely like this. The team will work to adapt to the different skills of the next quarterback, but I wish Seelbach would not have to adapt to his unexpected role of spectator. Not during his senior year. But that is the reality.

Friday’s game against Dexter will be the first public indicator of the team’s state of mind; Seelbach’s state of mind will be difficult for anyone outside the team to gauge.

On a lighter note, among the many spectators at the Saline game was a notable former Bulldog: Tony Scheffler, the second-round draft pick of the Denver Broncos; he was the first Chelsea football player to be taken in the NFL draft. It was nice to see him keeping an eye on his old team.

“Rocket Man” on the verge of obsolescence; Seahawks honor high school football

1)Superman outraged at the competition
A German man is developing a strap-on wing. Originally conceived as equipment for extreme sports enthusiasts, it is now being considered an exciting military tool. Instead of slowly drifting to their targets using parachutes, soldiers could fly quickly and precisely to a destination. Also, he is developing jet nozzles for the wing, an advancement which would increase the distance the wing and its user could cover.

At present, there is no word on whether or not he is also developing a cape.

(Thanks to Zippy for the link.)

2)They all started somewhere
When they built their new stadium, the Seattle Seahawks made a nice gesture: they included a display of helmets from every high school football team in the state. That’s superb; I’d like to see more displays like it.

Off-Broadway Baptist

Harvester Christian Church, a large church in the St. Louis area, has a busy drama ministry. However, their website’s drama ministry page is a bit confusing to me:

“The Creative Arts Production Ministry His Mercy produces three full stage productions a year, including a Christmas Eve production. These plays are full length, original, musical productions geared to sharing the gospel and the Word of God in a non-threatening manner. They provide the perfect opportunity to invite friends, family and co-workers to our church for a fun evening, and to begin to plant the seeds for the Lords kingdom. All are welcome!

“The Fall of 2006 we will be presenting the musical ‘You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.’ This show will be done in a dessert theater format.”

I am confused because the first paragraph says their productions are geared to sharing the gospel, while the second says they are presenting “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” I am having trouble reconciling those two statements. Specifically, I am not certain how “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” shares the gospel. It is a wonderful production, but I am not sure how it fulfills their goal of “productions geared to sharing the gospel and the Word of God.”

Please, don’t get me wrong: “You’re a Good Man” is a fun musical, and I am not upset that they are willing to use such a production. I just hope they don’t try so hard to repackage it as a gospel presentation that they drain the charm out of the musical. This would be better if it were simply a theatrical presentation, and not a church production. In fact, there ought to be more quality non-church productions by Christians … but that’s another topic altogether. Simply put, this is a good idea with mismatched wrapping.

Besides, were it to be a Biblically accurate production for the church, they would have to change the title. It would not be “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”; it would be “You’re a Fallen Man in need of Jesus, Charlie Brown.”

(Of course, it does not help that in the spring of 2007 they will be presenting a “Christian rewrite” of Pinocchio. I have already expressed my position on Christian rewrites, so I think it’s clear I won’t be going out of my way to see that production.)

What might Alanis call this?

At the end of each email sent by a Yahoo user, Yahoo includes an advertisement.  This was attached to one recent email I received:

“Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around”

Do you think their spam protection would protect me from their spam?  This reminds me of Earthlink’s pop-up advertisements selling their pop-up blocker.