The Lone Reception

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The following is the true story of the only catch of my high school football career.

I had noticed, on the previous couple of plays, that the cornerback covering me was paying me essentially no mind. It was hard to blame him. I was a 14-year old stringbean with average speed, hardly the second coming of Jerry Rice. And besides, we were just ramming it into the line on every play, grinding out 2 to 3 yards at a time as the clock continued it’s inexorable descent down to triple zeros.

Dyke, our strapping Senior QB, was slowly ambling back to the huddle to call the next play, which was certain to be another “32”, the fullback merely following the guard before being swallowed by a mass of bodies.

I had different ideas. “Hey Dyke,” I screeched out in my scratchy teen voice.

“Yeah,” he sneered back nasally, with a tinge of disdain he tacked on when he spoke to people below him, such as freshmen.

“Dude, that cornerback isn’t even covering me. I mean, I’m wide open over there. We could easily score.”

Dyke looked at me blankly, unsure of how to handle my request. He had been given specific instructions from the sidelines and our coach, Mr. Bynum, was a military veteran who equated deviations from the game plan with high treason.

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I’m Doing a Reading at Jose Pistola’s Tonight

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After quizzo tonight, I’m gonna be a doing a short reading at Jose Pistolas (15th and Spruce). It’s a dynamite lineup that includes D-Mac (who wrote this piece last week that went viral and resulted in Bill Simmons writing that he should win the Pulitzer), Mike Tanier, who writes for the Sports on Earth blog, and several performers in this years Fringe Festival. The topic for this one is football. It starts at Jose Pistolas at 10 p.m. and I’ve been told that there will be no football erotica (sorry Beth).

I actually wrote a piece yesterday about my one shining moment of glory on the gridiron, which came my freshman year of high school. Pretty funny piece. Come on by and check it out if you’re free later tonight. Pistolas has the best nachos in the city and plenty of great beers on tap.

Jonas and Susan Get Engaged Via Quizzo Answers


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Pretty awesome night last night at O’Neals.  Jonas and Susan, regulars on Bears are Scared of Jazz Hands, got engaged via quizzo answers, the 2nd time we’ve ever had that  happen at O’Neals. The first time was 8 years ago. It happened again at the Black Sheep in 2009; apparently this type of thing happens every 4 years. Regardless, I’m going to give the team a bonus point in the JGTAI, since Susan said yes. (Had she said no, I would be forced to take a point away.)

Here are the questions that led to THE QUESTION. The answers and how it all went down are posted below.

1. Fill in the blank on this 1987 musical hit: With or _______________.

2. A magazine, a cereal, and a board game.

3. The last name of Plan 9 from Outer Space director Ed.

4. What were the two initials of Mr. T’s character Baracas on the A-Team?

5. What is the 4 letter abbreviation for Mississippi?

6. What do you need to stab a vampire in the heart with to kill him?

7. What is the last name of conservative writer and baseball fan George, syndicated in over 450 papers?

8. The University of Miami is better known as the ___________.

9. She was queen of England from 1553-1558, and was known for her bloody persecution of Protestants.

10. What is the two letter abbreviation for Maine?

Bonus: Susan, please read the answers to numbers 1-10 and then give Jonas your answer.

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JGTAI Standings After One Week

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Here’s the scores after Week 1. Interesting what a difference these new wrinkles made in the scoring. The Savage Ear combined a win at O’Neals with 3 questions of the day on twitter to take the lead with 11 points. Meanwhile, Synchronized Trampoline was the only team to take advantage of the free point for tweeting or facebooking about JGT quizzo (If you’re gonna play the quiz, or you just played the quiz, mention it on facebook or twitter with either my name tagged or the hashtag #jgtquizzo to earn your team an easy point). And nobody took advantage of the Physical Challenge (Post a picture of you bowling) We’ll keep that as the physical challenge for this week. There are plenty of points out there for the taking. Your team just needs to take advantage.

And congrats to the Cracked Eggheads….they won the first invite to the Autumn Invitational with a win at the PHS quiz.

There are THREE DOUBLE POINTS QUIZZES this week. North Star tonight, O’Neals on Tuesday, and Industry on Thursday. It’s the only time all season we’ll have three in one week. So three shots to score big points early in the season. Get your team right and let’s do this.

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