So I’m watching the Broncos-Chiefs game on the NFL Network and I notice three things that bother me. The first is Deion Sanders’ hat. Well, not so much the hat as the man wearing the hat. I thought the NFL Network was supposed to be a new spin on football, but it looks like they just gathered up the rejects from CBS and FOX and then tossed in the dated, VH-1 humour of Rich Eisen (the man who killed SportsCenter) and the bland play-by-play of Bryant Gumbel. My old roommate Cocksucker John did better play-by-play than Bryant Gumbel, and he was just some loud cocksucker recording his own voice while watching college basketball on ESPN.
The second aspect of the broadcast that bothered me was the large, angular status bar at the top of the screen. Now I’m not a status bar hater. Even though it covers up part of the playing field, it provides useful information and, assuming the production crew is doing its job, the camera should be able to follow the play without letting the status bar get in the way. But the NFL Network’s bar is just ridiculous. It’s all jagged edges and too much unused space. It looks like something out the ridiculously bad title pages I would make using the Word Art feature in Word for my AP Bio lab reports. God, I was such a douchebag.
The third, and most bothersome element of the NFL Network’s broadcast was the line of scrimmage line. It’s red. Red means stop, making it wholly unsuitable for a marking that denotes the starting point of a play. And why is there even a line of scrimmage line anyway? The first down line is understandable and awesome. Football fans around the world sat in stunned disbelief the first time the simple yellow line made its appearance. And, more to the point, the first down line is incredibly useful for a fan. The line of scrimmage line, not so much. Before the play starts, the teams line up at the line of scrimmage, so I don’t need a line to tell me where 20 really big dudes are obviously lining up. After the play begins, the line of scrimmage really doesn’t matter, unless you’re only concerned about getting sacks for your fantasy football teams. In short, the line of scrimmage line is a waste of a perfectly good computer-generated line. It should be banned from all televised football games, as should all the children of the broadcasters. Nothing against Troy Aikman, but damn, he’s got some ugly kids.
Whatever happened to the Tele-strator? Remember when John Madden could circle the sweat stains on a lineman’s uniform during the third quarter to emphasize just how fat the guy was?
The line-of-scrimmage line (which is normally blue) is useful on screen passes. Without it, a one-yard loss looks pretty much the same as an eight-yard gain.
I believe sweat was used to indicate the effort the lineman had been exerting during the game. When Madden circled a lineman’s cankle, it was to show how the ridiculous size of that player. (For the less football enlightened idiots out there, a cankle is what Madden called it when a player’s calf was so large that it didn’t even appear that he had an ankle.) As for screen passes, even when the play is ongoing, there’s still going to be a bunch of players localized at or near the line of scrimmage. And, on a completely unrelated topic, what’s the deal with that new Dr. Pepper commercial where it talks about the 23 flavours contained within one single can of Dr. Pepper? Do the advert people really think that 23 rhymes with Japanese? That’s the kind of shoddy lyricism that will make Lord Alfred Tennyson rise from his grave and start eating people’s brains. The Dr. Pepper people should fear the wrath of zombie Lord Alfred Tennyson.
I don’t even quite understand what they mean by “23 flavors”. Baskin Robbins has 32 flavors, and I understand what they mean by that. I can accept a description of a glass of wine as containing a depth of several flavors, but if someone tried to list 23 flavors to describe one sip, I’d say they were nuts. Is Dr. Pepper claiming to have a more complex taste than good wine? Do they just mean that Dr. Pepper has 23 ingredients? Do they mean it has 23 “natural and artificial flavors” in the ingredients? Is this actually different from other cola brands? Look, Dr. Pepper has 1 flavor. It tastes like Dr. Pepper.
As far as I know, that taste is not similar to cum, which would be the only I can think of to play “Turning Japanese” in the commercial.
“As far as I know, that taste is not similar to cum…” As far as you know? I think you’re pulling that out of your ass. Despite your chemistry expertise, I don’t believe you have any experience that could ever give you the authority to accurately compare the taste of Dr. Pepper and semen. And if it weren’t for its Latin usage, I think I would add ‘cum’ to the Love Hewitt Word Filter. These comments are not the Penthouse Forum.
and Dr. Pepper certainly doesn’t smell like… anything other than Dr. Pepper.
Perhaps they mean there are 23 chemicals in Dr. Pepper that contribute to the flavor?
According the the adverts, Dr. Pepper is a combination of 23 flavours. I expect this to mean natural flavours, and not individual chemicals. According to the Dr. Pepper FAQ, the ingredients to Dr. Pepper are “proprietary information.” However, Dr. Pepper does not contain prune juice and it’s kosher, meaning it doesn’t contain bacon, shrimp or a combination of meat and dairy flavours.