Titans Notes

1. Turnovers, gentlemen. Turnovers are the reason teams lose. Remember the Baltimore game from last year? I do. It broke my heart. Don't turn it over.

2. Speaking of, someone inside the Titans organization please tell Vince Young that he needs to stop throwing under pass rush pressure 3rd quarter picks. He's done it before. A lot. He threw a pick 6 tonight that was just unnecessary. It was the difference between a win and a loss. He's good enough to fix this, but someone needs to tell him.

3. In other Vince Young news, he needs to be given credit. The pick 6 was unfortunate, but he's otherwise been putting the right foot forward, at least as of now. He's using his arm. He's using his legs. Seems like he's using his brain, which can be problematic at times (see #2).

4. Matthew Mulligan, TE (Maine), needs to be given a place on the practice squad. Not that I don't think he's good enough to play on Sunday, but there's Alge Crumpler, Bo Scaife and Jared Cook already on the squad. Crumpler should be let go after this contract expires. Not without a hardy thank you, but because Scaife--if he's still around--is already a starter quality TE and Jared Cook may be as well. And Crumpler will be at the end of his career when this contract expires, so let him retire. And someone should probably begin thinking about getting him on a Hall of Fame ballot. Getting him in is the choice of the voters, but I think he's nomination-worthy. And Matthew Mulligan is Sunday-worthy. So the Titans need to keep him around. I'm still not sure what to do with Craig Stevens, because he deserves to play as well. If either of these guys are free agents, some smart team will pick them up.

What the hell?

I'm not kidding. Facebook just notified me of this:

It's August 29, you're feeling frisky, Share some gifts, wild one.

Trust Me. I'm a Doctor.

A friend of mine may have just hurt himself, so I shouldn't be joking. But I'm not. For real. And he'll live. So, even if I was joking, it'd be ok.

I've made a brief list of things that I think people should look to first in certain medical situations. Either alone or in combination, try:

Water.
A Drink, but just one.
Ice.
Heat.
The Dark.
Aspirin, or whatever your painkiller of choice. But be careful with that prescription stuff.
Screaming.
Smashing something.
Taking a nap.
Zoning out
An apple.
Television.

There you go. You can thank me later. And you don't have to say "wow, that really worked." I know already. But pass it on.

Incidentalish Notificatiating, not all football

1. Google really stinks sometimes. I wanted a picture of The Duke (fig. 1) and thus typed "The Duke" into Google. All I got was John Wayne and some other knucklehead who thinks he's called The Duke. Then, Google Images even found me some crap soldier from a cheezy movie character called The Duke. And not the cool Duke from GI Joe. Google didn't come up with a single thing that was on topic until I typed the word "football" into the search. This is unacceptable. Google isn't going to live up to its promise until it is able to know what I mean all the time, even if I don't say it clearly.

2. Matthew Stafford is looking pretty decent. I think the punditry that believes Culpepper should start is probably right. But Stafford looks like he's got this mostly under control. As much as you can expect from a guy in his position. More than Sanchez. But, then again, Indy's defense isn't Baltimore's. But I still see this Stafford thing working out ok.

3. Memphis kicks ass. Your town doesn't have Graceland. Or Stax. And I don't care where you're from or what you think, our BBQ is way better than yours. I'm not saying it's the best city in the history of the universe. I'm just saying that Memphis kicks ass.

4. People complain about all the stops in a football game. When else are you going to go do all the other stuff that you need to do? I mean, damn, the games are on for 9 hours in a row some days. You've got to get some other stuff done. I've so far only been watching for 3 hours and 36 minutes and I've cleaned the whole house, eaten two meals, aired out the rugs, did all the dishes, and been writing this craziness. Commercials suck. Watching football is the best way to get things done.

5. "More better" is not proper English. I'm talking to you, J.T. "The Brick" from Raiders Television Network. And anybody else who wants their English to get more better. The er takes care of the more. It's like Bigger and Deffer. You just get bigger. Like when you take steroids, which, kids, makes you stupider, too. Now, big we can understand, so bigger makes sense. Def we can understand, so deffer makes sense. Along those lines, if we have better, what's bett? Somebody get me an etymology.

6. The Raiders need a new stadium. I'm not saying that they deserve one, but they field they play on looks like trash. Sharing a stadium with a baseball team is, at the very least, horrific for the aesthetics of the field. Only god knows what playing on it is like.

7. At some point recently, I made a list of things I would buy next time I had some superfluous money. Which frankly makes no sense in the middle of a recession. But my only two items were wireless video game controllers and more visors. I need to reprioritize. What I need is an XBOX 360, so I could become a professional Madden player. That'd be sweet.

8. Sometimes, the best art is the kind of art that's good to look at for about 20 seconds and then be able to forget about.

9. It's actually true. The early Black Eyed Peas stuff is pretty dope. I just got my hands on Behind The Front, their 1998 debut. So far, I'm impressed. Which makes that 3 for 3 with J5 and Dilated. They never stopped making good hip hop in California.

10. That lost ball wasn't JaMarcus Russell's fault. You need better blocking on the end of that line. Someone coming all that far around the end should be able to be pushed out of the way. That tackle needs to sort that out.

11. The left side of the Saints' O-line needs to block better. That screen at about 5:00 of the 1st quarter could've gone for 10 more yards if those two would've blocked better.

This is a Great Idea

Ritchie Smith Associates has a plan to plant trees on Plough Boulevard on the way to the Memphis Airport. Lots of them. Canopy trees and about 650 smaller trees.

This is a really good idea. We all know that Plough Boulevard is one of the world's most uniformly dull roads to have to look at. Much to its credit, the road is really fun to drive on. Everyone's going about 15-20 miles over the limit, it's got lengthy and graceful curves, enough space that it isn't usually traffic-ridden, and bridges a very long expanse that brings people into and out of Memphis.

There's a good article on this in the Flyer this week, but I just wanted to spread this idea a bit to the wider world. Because I think it matters to everyone.

America is beginning to look like hell.

I've been loads of places, mainly because my parents drove to everywhere when I was a kid, so I've been to most of the contiguous states, and I've been to Hawaii. So I've been lucky enough to see a huge amount of this country, which is a wicked land indeed. The land. The stuff we didn't mess with. The San Francisco Bay. The Na Pali coast. The Badlands. Maine. Even New Jersey, which remains the greatest of the states in this union, is really truly beautiful in the places we didn't go and wreck.

I'd argue the primary reason for one of these dilemmas--the one that pertains to Plough--is that we, as a nation and voting citizenry, haven't done hardly worth a damn for keeping the infrastructure together. Plough Boulevard, frankly, is a nice road. But the stuff around it isn't worth looking at

How many pot holes can you think of that you've driven past recently?

If the number is more than 10 in a week, your neighborhood needs some work. Mine does. Lots of Memphis does. Lots of everywhere does.

How many roads can you think of that don't have trees on them?

I can think of lots. One of the biggest roads in Memphis--Union Avenue--apparently used to have loads of trees on it. Then they cut them all down and replaced them with Chik-Fil-A and a Schnucks and a dozen Walgreens and MacDonalds and Wendy's and all that crap. Now, on one level right now, I'm not arguing against these chains. I'm just enraged by the fact I can't drive down lots of roads under the cover of trees. There's plenty of roads here that have trees. Just like in New Jersey, when I was a kid. Just like where my parents live now. Like lots of places.

More trees make for better experiences. For people coming and going to Memphis to and from the airport. For people who live near them and get to look at them. For people that walk under them in the heat. For people that drive under them and don't get a glare on the windshield.

Ya smell me?

You probably don't. Cause the trees help filter the air.

Plant the damn trees. You've already got my tax money. Quit spending it on bombs. Give it to Ritchie Smith and everyone else who wants to plant trees. It'll make everything nicer. I promise.