Camping Adventures II: The Search for Spork: Tuesday Open Thread

We’re going camping this weekend.

I hate camping.

My ancestors camped for 40 fucking years in the desert because they were complaining dickholes who reverted to idolotry at the drop of a hat. Camping was punishment, and the intervening 3000 years of Jewish history have been a relatively steady march away from that shit and toward things like Buildings and Plumbing and suchlike.

You want to know why American Ashkenazi Jewish society tends to highly value education and career achievement? Because those are the things that keep us out of tents!

But as with the idols thing, subsequent generations keep revisiting the folly. My wife was convinced by our best couple-friends that it would be Fun For The Kids. Sigh.

And so we will traipse out to Rural Illinois and pitch our tents and explain to the four year olds in the group why we are sweating our tits off in the midst of Cicada Orgy 2024, smack dab in the overlap between Brood XIX (the Great Southern Brood) and Brood XIII (the Despoilers of Hope). “Why, Daddy?” they will cry, “What happened to our homes and our stuffed animals and our air conditioning? What sins have we committed to be cast out of Eden?!?!”

And my fellow father and I will tell them The Truth: it is because you keep waking up in the middle of the night and coming into Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom during Special Time.

Little cockblocks…

Then we will roast marshmallows, and hardship shall be forgotten until one of them wakes up freaking out that there is a werebear in the trees.

Pray for me.

NFL NEWS

-The Bills signed wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling to a one-year deal. MVS, formerly of the Chefs and Packers, brings some speed along with a distinguished history of Dropping the Fucking Ball. He joins Curtis Samuel, Mack Hollins and Chase Claypool in the competition for the Bills’ “Day-of-Game Waiver Pickup For Your WR3 Spot” position.

-The Lions have agreed to piss away $212 million over four years for Jared Goff’s continuing services. In fairness, although reports are that $170 million of it is guaranteed, I haven’t seen anything indicating what portion is fully guaranteed versus only guaranteed for injury, salary cap, etc. Maybe there’s a Derek Carr-style escape hatch that lets the team bail after two years of regression toward the mean.

I know Goff has taken off since coming to Detroit and has bee  near the top of the league in many statistical categories. I mean no disrespect when I say he reminds me of the late 90s, when we had a run of guys like Steve Beuerlein, Elvis Grbac and Brad Johnson near the top of those same tables. Good quarterbacks who had good years, but not Pay Them Like Top 3 In The League guys. They don’t last. Dude’s mid-flight on the Blake Bortles-Jay Cutler arc, and it’s downhill from here.

Maybe I’m wrong. I fully cop to an anti-Detroit bias. Not because I dislike the team- far from it, under its current regime. But the team is shrouded by the same Dark Energy as the Bills: good things can happen, but like a karmic rubberband, the Universe will only let them stretch so far before they get snapped back. Wile E. Coyote. Giant slingshot. Etc.

-Antoine Winfield Jr. got paaaaaid by the Bucs. 4 years, $84.1 million, roughly half guaranteed in at least some form. Well deserved, although it’s a pity he’ll be stuck in Tampa.

With this signing, seven of the eight franchise tagees have signed multi-year contracts. Tee Higgins seems determined to either force a trade or play out the year in Cincy.

-Apparently Justin Fields and Nick Foles hated each others’ guts while in Chicago. Significant friction when Foles tried to “mentor” Fields, and Fields wasn’t having it. No word on whether the phrase “dick measuring contest” was literal or figurative in this instance.

WHAT’S ON TONIGHT?

NHL
Boston vs. Florida, (7:00 Eastern on ESPN)

Vancouver vs. Edmonton, (9:30 Eastern on ESPN)

Whelp, I’m ambivalent on the first game. Watching the Bruins flame out miserably is always a joy, stretching back to the Cam Neely asshole era. On the other hand, the Panthers’ very existence is an insult: birthed from the same rotting womb as the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, nutured in the semi-swampland of Miami, where no seeds of ice hockey should grow. Fuck’em both.

I have no opinions on Vancouver, but cannot watch Edmonton without being reminded of the NHL changing the Draft Lottery rules to cheat Buffalo out of its hard-won (hard-lost?) place at the top of the Connor McDavid. So fuck him, fuck them, go Vancouver

NBA

Indiana vs. New York (8 Eastern, TNT)

Minnesota vs. Denver (10:30 Eastern, TNT)

I guess go Indiana? My default is to root against any team claiming New York City, Tom Thibideau has ruined so many careers through coaching malpractice, and James Dolan manages to stand out among the godawful swamp of humanity that is NBA Ownership as the Asshole’s Asshole.

I think I’m pro-Minnesota in the second game. Stan Kroenke has already had to many good things in his life. Glen Taylor is no saint, but anybody who fucks over Alex Rodriguez and Mark Lore can’t be all bad.