Iron Dirigible Week 3 Recap- I shouldn't be alive

Here we are, mere moments away from starting Week 4, and I still haven't posted the update for Week 3. Normally, I'd say something funny about a video game, tv show, or movie I'd experienced recently and use that as justification for the delay. But that's not true. Last week's games have sent me into an existential crisis. You see, I defeated my best friend/archnemesis the Bean in Fantasy Football for the 15th time in 17 total games and I did so in a way that humiliates and degrades him. You'd think I'd be overjoyed. But I'm not because of one simple word: The Fail Mary aka The Touchception.

(Bitter)SWEET VICTORY!

Can I declare victory over the Bean if it is based on a clearly fraudulent call? Strictly speaking, yes, yes I can and I already have and I'm going to gloat about it. Neener neener neener! You couldn't score 15 points with Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay defense combined. Neener neener neener! Also, it helps that Bean declared victory halfway through the third quarter and then literally everything went my way. I'm not even kidding. I'm in two leagues, you see, the Iron Dirigible and the Beanpocalypse Now. In Beanpocalypse Now, I was playing against Bean the Elder and he was starting the Seattle defense. I'll spare you the details, but I beat Bean the Elder by one point and Bean the Younger by two points. If Rodgers gets sacked once and Martin gets called for the interception he threw at the end of the game, I lose both games. But thanks to a terrible labor dispute, I won.

I feel like I've been war profiteering.

So Pimps & Gimps of the Week, right?

Pimps of the Week

The divide between Pimpin teams and Gimpin teams was particularly vast this week. You had two teams score over 120 and two teams score under 70. I'd like to welcome Larry Fitzgerald to our readership because he saw how I called him out last time and decided to make himself indispensable again for Team Gray. Side note: Dorian, you can't change the name of your team in the middle of the season after going my one team name for five years; I will not acknowledge this change, much as I won't acknowledge Matt Ryan's 21 points. Calvin "Megatron" Johnson also gets a shoutout for scoring more points against the Titans than he had in the year to date, yet still somehow losing to the Titans. So he helped to build the Middle Tennessee community AND pay dividends to the Pimpmaster.

But the true pimp this week is Jamaal "Juggernaut" Charles. The greatest tragedy of this season is not the replacement refs, but that I could not draft Jamaal Charles in either league. I came so close to drafting him, but Tune channeled his inner-Doug and took him the pick right before mine. See, normally when I talk about guys who show up Stay Puft Marshmallow man big, they normally have a few touchdowns to their name and a pretty great total of yards (like Reggie Bush's 140 something). But Jamaal Charles thought differently. He looked at the Saints defense and said "Don't you know who I am? You must not know who I am. I'M JAMAAL CHARLES, B***********H". And he scored 36 points.

But it's the way he did it. He only had one total touchdown and 55 yards receiving. The other 25 points he scored? Pure yardage. "Silly Saints, your tackles cannot harm me. I'M JAMAAL CHARLES, B***********H!!"

Gimps of the Week

To the surprise of none, this update took much longer to write than expected. So I'm going to fast track the Gimp of the Week section. Remember last year, when Vick was supposed to be opening a new chapter on his career and usher in a new era of quarterbacking? Yeah, it turns out 2010 was a fluke.  Vick completed less than half his passes for less than 225 yards and no touchdowns. He "added" -3 points with his feet with 15 yards and two lost fumbles. Demaryius Thomas, your game line is bad and you should feel bad.

But the real victim is Aaron Rodgers. He had such a promising career, then Bean drafted him. Now he's put up back to back stinkers. And it's more than just Bean stealing his talent, it's created bizarre situations that wouldn't happen if Bean didn't own Rodgers. For example, the Packers were close to the goal line and decided to run it in with Benson. Last year, the Packers only had 8 non-Rodgers rushing TDs versus 55 touchdowns Rodgers was someway involved in. But the Packers decided to eschew what worked in the past because they knew that Bean has ruined Rodgers forever.

Matchup of the Week: Tune vs the Velociraptors for two reasons. First reason is "Tune versus the Velociraptors" should be the name of a children's book. Second, this will answer the age old question of whether it is better to be lucky or good. Tune is second in scoring with over 300 points in 3 games whereas I have 263. But I have the better record because I've only had 247 points against me instead of the 293 scored against Tune

Iron Dirigible Week 1 & Week 2 Double Pack

For reasons of wanting to do something special for my 150th Blog Post (btw, mission accomplished! I got so many compliments on the Hunger Games article from people I didn't even know read my blog), I did not get around to discussing Week 1 of Iron Dirigible in a timely fashion. I know, many of you are crestfallen, and by many, I mean "the seven other people in the league plus the handful of my friends who are equally football crazy". So I'm going to do the awards for Week 1, Week 2 and the Week 3 previews all in one swoop. If I don't do it today, it's not going to happen in a timely fashion either. Quick glance at my schedule for the enxt 36 hours: office hours, class, class, errands, Borderlands 2, sleep, tutoring, Borderlands 2, lunch, Borderlands 2, Office Hours, Senate, then friends over for football (editor's note: this schedule has now been thrown completely out of whack, just roll with it). Since time is of the essence, let's dive right in to the Pimps of the Week and the Gimps of the Week for Week 1!

Borderlands 2 forces me to make the hardest choice of my life: big guns, many guns, or guns & also swords.
I am paralyzed by indecision.
P.S. Is it sexist that the lady has the least number number of guns & swords and thus least appealing to me?
P.P.S. Is it a Freudian thing that all the guys in the pictures have swords and guns and the lady has a round glowy ball of death?
P.P.P.S OH GOD! WE'RE AT INCEPTION LEVEL OF OVERTHINKING! ONE LEVEL MORE AND WE'RE TRAPPED FOREVER!
P.P.P.P.S BWAAAAM! BWAAAAAAAM! BWAAAAAAM!!!!

The Hunger Games: A 150th Post Extravaganza

That's right! I'm delaying talking about Fantasy Football to finally talk about the Hunger Games! I have no idea how I'm going to broach the subject, but I'll do this the EMPH way: with very little forethought and a great deal of digressions with the illusion of order!

I'm partial to this logo. It's simple, classy and has meaning to the story.

What I Think of the Series as a Whole

I'll start this off with a bold statement: I think The Hunger Games is significantly better than Harry Potter. For starters, Katniss never uses a time machine to solve all her problems and then never mention it again. Secondly, The Hunger Games brilliantly use Latin and classical history and Harry Potter has all the subtlety of a freight train with Latin. Seriously, the main evil family is led by Lucius Malfoy (translated: Satan McBadguy, because Lucius is one step away from Lucifer) and his eldest son, Draco Malfoy (translated: Satan McBadguy Jr., because Draco means dragon and dragons historically are the very incarnation of the Devil). I will talk more about Latin later, because this is really one of the highlights of the book. But back on point, I think The Hunger Games is substantially more relatable than Harry Potter and its story is much more focused and relies less on deus ex machina to resolve the plot. For starters, Katniss's unhappy starting place is a lot more believable and a lot more sad than Harry's. Her family lives in poverty and was pushed to the brink of starvation due to the untimely death of her father in a mining accident, which forces her to assume more responsibility than a teen girl should. Harry's sad place is an evil wizard killed his parents before he ever met them and now he must live with his comically abusive aunt and uncle where they force him to live under the staircase instead of one of the extra rooms they have, because they are jerks and Child Services doesn't exist in this universe and literally no one has ever asked Harry about his well-being. Then one day, Hagrid shows up and tells Harry that he's a wizard and also he's the wizard of destiny and also his parents left him a fortune in wizard gold but lacked the foresight to convert any of their money into wealth their son could use OR consider leaving him in the care of someone who wasn't estranged from the family. Whereas Katniss has to overcome her obstacles by playing things smart and surviving, at least until thefirst half of Mockingjay, Harry overcomes his obstacles through things he had no control over. Boy, it sure is fortunate that it turns out that Harry's very touch kills Voldemort and that Voldemort forgot about this. One good avada cadavra spell from Quirrell and it's a 1 volume story. It's also a good thing that Dumbledore's phoenix can apparently find its way into long hidden and forgotten chambers so that Harry can literally pull a magic sword from a hat. I could do this all day, but I won't.

NBC WANTS me to share this video

So I just got out of my first staff meeting and got to see my beloved Steeles punt to Peyton Manning and the lightly less beloved Broncos (btw, they've been recommunicated with Church of Hunterian Football after renouncing the McDaniels Heresy and purging the Tebow Apostasy from the team). Anyways, as Peyton Manning took the field, they began playing that xylophone part from "Somebody that I Used to Know". It could be a popular song OR IT COULD BE THE GREATEST INSIDE JOKE EVER. Behold:

Iron Dirigible Week 1: This is all Obamunism's Fault

I had plans, you know. I was going to talk about The Hunger Games and then hype the first week of football after that. But NO! Somebody had to give his acceptance speech on Thursday and the NFL decided it would look really bad for American culture when football absolutely crushed the President of the United States in the ratings department. So now I have to once again eschew talking about the tale of Katniss Everdeen because I am all about punctuality on this blog.

What? If I say it enough times, it has to be true, right?

I am reluctantly ready for some football! A Wednesday Night Happenstance!

Normally, I start by recapping last week's games, talking about the major disappointments and the major surprises (lovingly known as Pimp of the Week & Gimp of the Week). However, the closest thing to a game we've had in the past month was the draft. And the last time I discussed that event, it took over 5,000 words and discredited me with virtually every fine honey within a 20 mile radius. So let's not repeat that. I sorta want to be done writing this post before the NFL season kicks off. Let's dive right into the match-ups!

By the way, fun bit of trivia: George R.R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones and all its wonderful sequels, is a HUGE New York Giants fan.

Also, if you're so moved by my discussions of Iron Dirigible that you just have to see what all the fuss is about, you can visit the league here.