Because I am an idiot, I am planning on watching the Pro Bowl this weekend. Let’s see: teams captained by… Devonta Freeman and Geno Atkins? And OBJ… and Aaron Donald? That’s star power right there, folks. Can’t wait to see John Kuhn and Latavius Murray catch a two-yard slant for a gain of one on third down! Big plays? What are those? We might get hurt chucking it deep, can’t have any of that! Even with no defense, these passes are gonna float more than Elian Gonzalez on the raft to Miami. Plus this game is being coached by Andy Reid! Honestly, he’s the perfect man for the job – in a game with zero sense of urgency, why on earth would you employ a coach with one either?

Why the fuck do we do this to ourselves? Why do we, as sports fans, purposefully put up with a shitty product? I know that some of you fine folks were discussing some Pro Bowl improvements in another post earlier this week, and they made sense. And yet they keep selling fucking tickets to this bullshit. At any rate, I hope the madness ends soon. It’s the most turned-down Pro Bowl in the history of the event. I think the writing will be on the wall soon. Change it up! Make it a seven-on-seven game where everyone’s eligible! I WANT FAT GUY TOUCHDOWNS TO BE WORTH DOUBLE. Fuck. Just do something. Anything.

Enough bitching! More answering! Here we go.

At what point in a relationship is it acceptable to not have to hold in your farts while around your significant other?

I’d say probably about 6 months. You’re probably not trying to impress each other by this point and can probably be pretty relaxed and normal overall. Farts happen. Sometimes they smell bad. You let one rip? Apologize and move on. If it’s especially bad, grab some Febreze and laugh about it with each other. Be an adult.

If you’re going back in time to the Middle Ages, what’s one piece of technology you can take back with you that would impress/scare the people the most, besides the obvious computer/smartphone/internet or motor vehicle/airplane/etc. sort of thing?

Honestly, I think that just basic photography would probably have me worshipped as Christ’s return, or elsewise burned at the stake. Particularly instantaneous digital photography. When the only way of recording someone’s appearance for posterity is through sculpture, oil paintings or tapestry embroidery, I think being able to whip out a camera and take a picture would blow minds.

That, or fruits and vegetables that are able to be shipped all over the world. You wanna eat strawberries in northern Finland in the middle of winter? You can do that! Might be somewhat expensive, but we have the technology now. For these scurvy-riddled malcontents, I think they’d be extremely impressed.

Imagine you have a small personal army, enough to take over a small island of your choosing. What island do you pick, and why? How do you do it?

So one of the issues with this question is that it’s not leaving room for any supposed counterattacks; there are so few unclaimed islands out there (or countries that lack any international alliances) that if you tried to invade, you’d be met with a counterattack from some other, much larger army pretty fucking quickly. So maybe for arguments’ sake you do manage to take the island. What then? If you have the full weight of NATO, China or some other giant armed force coming down on you, you’re probably gonna cave right away unless you want a bunch of Stinger missiles up your asscrack.

But let’s ignore this technicality for a minute. Let’s say that if you do somehow manage to conquer a piece of land, it’s yours, and you rule it.

First, there’s the geographic selection. Where do you want your island to be close to, and why? Is it due to your style of governance, affinity for a particular natural resource, or desire for diplomatic relations with a country or countries?

Second, we’ve got our army make-up. Is the island close enough to another piece of land that we could stage a beach invasion? Or is it so remote that it’s going to take a combo of airstrikes and paratroop drops in order to get ground forces deployed? Or do you have an alternate strategy in mind?

Lastly, how do you plan to ensure continued control? What equipment/personnel do you need to have in order to maintain your rule?

So personally, I spun my old globe around a few times and settled on the island of St. Kilda, in the northern sea off the Hebrides in Scotland. There’s been no permanent population there since 1930, and it currently is a wildlife reserve for Scotland. Very isolated and mountainous, but has arable land for farming of barley and potatoes (quite useful) as well as raising livestock (there are several historic types of sheep living there). It’s also known as a bird sanctuary for many indigenous species of the Hebrides, so it can clearly be a sustainable place to live. Why St. Kilda? Well, if I am indeed to be believed that I can hold the island indefinitely, then it is of great geographic advantage to me. With such close proximity to the UK as well as Scandinavia and Russia, I could establish a rogue state that can be appeased periodically just as North Korea is now. Of note, the sea can be quite rough, so establishing a landing over the water would likely be fairly difficult, especially in larger ships, but troops may potentially be ferried in small, armed dinghies were I to stage a land invasion.

The Village, south end of St. Kilda; the only permanent settlement on the island, believed to have been settled in Neolithic times originally

Realistically, though, because the island is virtually uninhabited, the quickest to establish an invasion force would be through paratroopers. With initial boots on the ground quickly, securing a settlement era on the south end of the island and the building of a breakwater in order to establish some variety of safe harbour would probably be an important first step. Now, the final disadvantage to this island would probably be its terrain; considering the mountainous nature of the island, building an airstrip would be tricky, thus necessitating choppers to bring down supplies and personnel, and/or Harrier jump jets to perform vertical take-offs and landings – a potentially costly usage of fuel.

However, because the islands are so rocky here, there’s really only one spot that invading forces can land ground troops. If you control the one beachhead at Glen Bay (see map), then you have a big advantage on quelling a land invasion. Stick a few artillery/anti-aircraft or -warship batteries at a couple of the highest peaks (assuming they’ve got enough trajectory to make it a few miles out to sea) and you have some more trusty defense mechanisms in place. Finally, there are also caves in the side of the hills that can serve as natural ordnance and supply storage – plus it’s much harder for enemies to tell a supply cave from a supply hut, which adds another advantage in your favour.

Plus, I want my island to be remote, but not so remote that it’s gonna take me like ten hours to fly anywhere of significance, i.e. one of 100 gazillion I could’ve chosen in the middle of the Pacific. No one’s ever gonna invade the US Virgin Islands these days (unless you’re WWII Japan), but they’re so remote that it’s hard for them to serve a strong purpose, in my opinion.

Overall, with establishing a permanent base and some secure supply lines for resources, an independent island in the north Atlantic could prove to be a giant pain in the ass for much of NATO and Russia, and with proper political manouevring (in which I have zero skill), could potentially pit St. Kilda as the only stopgap in between a full-on war between the two sides. I could be RICH. I would also likely be dead.

(I would probably be just as insane as Kim Jong-Un if I ever somehow found myself in this position. It is almost assuredly for the best that this situation could never, ever ever pan out in real life.)

Other sports have skills competitions as part of their all-star weekends – the Home Run Derby, the Slam Dunk and 3-point competiton, the NHL fastest skater/hardest shot/accuracy/breakaway challenges… how could the NFL incorporate something like this into the Pro Bowl festivities?

The thing about football that doesn’t make it geared towards Skills Competitons per se is that it truly is “the ultimate team game”, as cliched as that is. There’s not much you can do for measure individuals’ skills, because so much of success on the field is reliant on every person out their performing their role properly. It’s not one person going out and scoring a touchdown; the center has to snap a ball well, the QB has to hand off properly, the offensive line has to give the correct blocks and open up space… and only then can the running back take off and run as hard as they can.

There actually used to be a Skills Competition at the Pro Bowl until 2007, and it wasn’t even aired live; it was a tape-delayed broadcast that was heavily edited and never had much publicity to it at all. Wikipedia claims that “[a]mong the events were a 40-yard dash, throwing for accuracy, kicking for distance, catching, and bench press.” It was also held at a field belonging to the hotel where the players were staying at, and was discontinued in part to the hotel deciding to use the field for other purposes, and it no longer exists.

So for individual skills, what can we do? Fastest runner? Dull. We already have track meets. Target practise? Maybe. Have various obstacles set up around the field and have QBs/punters/kickers trying to peg them by throwing or kicking. Maybe have a radar gun strapped to a tackling dummy and see how hard the linebacker can hit the thing. Field goals from long distance? Perhaps.

The issue with all of these is that it doesn’t make for very compelling TV, so I have a hard time thinking that it would catch on very well. Instead, we’d be better off seeing linemen competing in an eating contest, or both teams squaring off in a tug-of-war or obstacle contest or something entirely unrelated to football. But that’s not what we’re going for here, so all in all, my answer for this would be to say that I just don’t think it would work in the end. It’s hard enough to get players and fans alike to give a shit about the Pro Bowl, and putting preliminary events even MORE gimmicky than the game is just going to diminish that product further. You want gimmicks? Watch pro wrestling. That’s all I got on this matter.

Enjoy your weekend, and if you’re a masochist like me, I hope you have lots of wonderful food and alcohol on hand this Sunday. Cheers.

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For all readers – if you have questions about fantasy football, your love life, or anything else going on, please send all inquiries to [email protected] or tweet The Maestro at @TSN_Jorts. The Mailbag will be published every Friday, pending enough submitted material (hint, hint…).