Are you ready for some football?

This week's purchase was the annual EA Sports college football game, in this case, "NCAA 06."

Nothing like running the option as a warmup for some serious Raiders "Madden" playing.

Last year, I bought the big "Madden" Collector's Edition, and then hardly played. I never quite recovered from the Raiders cutting Tim Brown in real life. This year, I'm sure it will be different, though...

Usually, I only play the college game until "Madden" comes out, because the college game has been a) an inferior football game, more like the previous year's "Madden," and b) because they don't license player names, so I get sick of either living with guys named QB#12 or typing in names.

But this year, two major happenings: First, they enabled with button to just make up random names for players. Saves a ton of time when there's 119 Division I-A teams and a bunch of D I-AA ones. It's a little weird to see the guy I know is USC's star quarterback, Matt Leinert, called Willie Coe, but hey, I could always change it. But at 70 guys per team and about 150 teams... well, no, "NCAA 07" would be out before I'm done, and I type fast.

One serious downside: Whether it's my first-gen PS2 or what, the game hitches like mad on the loading screens - the gameplay's fine, but God is it annoying to try and wade through everything to get there. The disc is in perfect shape, so I'd guess it's my aging PS2.

The second major happening? "Heisman mode." It's like Dynasty mode, but with one player - you create a freshman, work out, win scholarship offers, and find yourself starting on opening day. You've got four years of eligibility and your goals are to win the Heisman and the national title (and, based on the inclusion of a girlfriend picture, get laid).

So on my third try at the workouts (first one went badly, as I chose my position poorly; second one, the computer hiccuped when I tried to save and I wound up losing my game) I wound up getting an offer from #1 USC. As a scrambling QB. But who's going to turn down the nation's top program?

There I am, in a passing offense, running like hell, while the nation's top player, in virtual form, is holding on placekicks. It's a little weird, but hey, I stunned 'em at the workout, what can I say?

And then, after four years, I can import my guy into "Madden," which apparently has a similar mode, with a 20-year career path (it's out in a couple of weeks). It's an awesome twist on the Dynasty mode, which is just about the greatest thing ever in video game history, or at least this side of "Resident Evil" and "Gran Turismo." Run every aspect of the franchise - the Raiders, of course - from ticket prices to free agent signings to my personal favorite, the NFL Draft. One year, I even did what Al Davis has never managed, to build a new, football-only stadium in Oakland.

And I won three straight Super Bowls, with Mild Bill Callahan as my head coach. For my next trick, I'll be out on the Passaic, walking.

• EA Sports: It's in the game! ...

...Including a slow, overweight Asian Jew's white, rifle-armed, sprinter-speed teenage alter ego. Who rushed for 200 yards on opening day.

Just when you thought it was safe...

... To wrap up a post on strange stuff, this happens:

I went to Barnes & Noble tonight after work to pick up a magazine.

So I'm standing in line, waiting to check out, and they've got a bunch of audio books on a rack at the counter.

You know, books on CD. It's a concept I've never warmed up to, despite my love of reading and my 50-minute-each-way commute. I just like actually reading my books, instead of listening to them. Besides, the kind of fiction I like, I might wreck my car if something shocking happened. The authors I favor tend to be jaw-droppers.

That's not the odd part. The odd part is, one of the packages has a blurb:

"A real page-turner!"

D'oh! Now THAT is a forehead-smacker.

• Barnes & Noble online
• Athlon Sports, whose college football mag I bought

I might point out that my hockey jones is on the verge of being satisfied: The NHL is back! And it's about freakin' time. Don't know how the players will be able to sit on the bench bleeding from the rectum, though. Nice job on the negotiations, guys. You lost a season and still got nailed with a salary cap.

At least Sidney Crosby ended up going to my favorite team. Er, second-favorite team. Sorry, Dave, I meant second-favorite, I really did. And Dave's, er, MY favorite team signed its two top prospects today, too.

Let the games begin!

A few random thoughts

I can't think of anything to write, so I'm just going to share a few strange things I saw today. A magnificent seven, as it were.

1. Somebody on HorrorTalk mentioned some legislators here in New Jersey want to ban smoking in automobiles. My property taxes are through the roof, there's one of the nation's biggest depositories for mercury in my township, they still haven't built the Route 206 bypass, we don't have a real governor, terrorists have plans for Newark buildings, and the most important thing these idiots can think of is that I can't smoke in my car? Then why does it come standard with a cigarette lighter and ashtray, huh? Good thing the sponsor isn't my assemblyman, or I'd be tempted to give him a piece of my mind.

2. Speaking of smoking in your car, what I could see is a rule against flicking your cigarette butts out the window while driving. Am I the only one who's ever wondered what might happen if you drive over a bouncing cig butt and your gas tank is leaking? KABOOM!

3. Some Miami politician committed suicide in the Miami Herald office today. I'm from Pennsylvania, where all political-corruption suicides are measured against Bud Dwyer, who shot himself live on television at a news conference. I'm not that impressed.

4. I saw an article about a missing pregnant black woman in Philadelphia on CNN.com today. It's nice to see something about a missing person who isn't a whitebread suburbanite. USA Today had an article a while back out that whole no-men, no-minorities missing-persons fetish. I hope they find her, too.

5. The expression, "more fun than a barrel of monkeys"... I'm not thinking a barrel of monkeys is fun. Maybe a barrel of dachshunds. Or a barrel of monkeys going over Niagara Falls. But a barrel of monkeys would just be full of screaming primates.

6. I heard a great commercial on the radio today, for some Toyota sedan. It's a guy talking to some rice-boy kids ("yeah, you, the ones with the stupid stickers all over your car and the useless tail fin") about whether or not there's a sticker for their car that says "I just got my BLEEP handed to me by a 38-year-old father of two." Cracked me up. Not quite as much as the life insurance that pays you even if you don't die, but still.

7. Nos. 5 and 6 bring to mind one of the all-time great commercials, the cell phone one where the rancher wants oxen, but he has bad static, and gets dachshunds. "Stampede!"

Links:
• An editorial on the anti-smoking bill, from No. 1 and No. 2
• The CNN.com article on the missing lady, No. 4
• The Barrel of Monkeys game, No. 5, which doesn't look that fun
• The Toyota Avalon, from the commercial in No. 6
• Funny animal commercials, including No. 7

Yes, the Net is full of Bud Dwyer footage, for No. 3. Google it yourself, you sickos!