Modest Mango

Sorry young team, been out of the loop a bit, being ‘between jobs’ is actually more hectic than anticipated. Job applications royally suck. What are my core skills? How about my two freaking degrees! Bite it.

Click to read more.

Anyway, Neil F has jumped to the head of the Superchallenge standings after our second ever 5-0 week, so congratulations to him.

Neil F- 12-7-1

Neil M- 11-8-1

Steve- 11-9

Glen- 10-9-1

Chan- 9-10-1

Hozz- 9-10-1

Nice to see that it’s all relatively close so far. It really is a hard league to get a handle on this year. 

Ok, fantasy time.

Dire Dismal Bullshit Game Of The Week

Slim pickins this week boys, not too much drama around the league. The crap game is an easy pick, but unfortunately it involves me again. At least I won.

Farrakhans 74-46 Baby Bulls

Ugh. Thankfully Michael Turner turned it on, so to speak, for me with 24 points or some shit. The only of Burr’s guys to hit double figures was Antonio Gates. We should both hang our head in shame.

And oh yeah. Week 7 of the NFL completely destroyed my fantasy season going forward, ruling me out of future success. Fuck you, Tony Romo…

…Fuck you.

HighScoring and Pretty Close Cool Enough Game of the Week

Box Turtles 141- 135 Hummingbirds.

Look again at those scores. Un-freaking-real. We’ll call this match up the battle of Kenny Britt and Darren McFadden. After Britt went batshit mental for 2.5 quarters against the hapless Eagles secondary (7 catches for 225 and 3 scores. wat.) I thought Neil was all but done for until Darren McFadden reminded us all that he is actually a freakish talent who has had just the worst luck with injuries. 16 for 165 and 3 scores (over 10 yards a clip jesus christ) and an extra 2 for 31 and a score in the air. 45 freaking points. Truly outstanding. 

Neil built on this with another great Hakeem Nicks outing, 9 for 108 +2, 14 from his kicker, 20 from Knowshon Moreno (who i’ve watched twice now, and am positive is actually not a good football player), and the happiest stat line of the day, for me at least, Mike Williams of the Seattle variety. BMFMW singlehandedly kept those pesky Cardinals down and out of the game with an outstanding second half performance, 11 for 87, with a touchdown earlier in the game. Great job Mike, the 12th Man is crazy for you right now.

BMW says ‘Fuck you, Tony Romo.’

Standings

The West continues to live up to its namesakes. Disgusting.

Both other divisions remain impressively competitive, but you gotta feel for Steve’s red tops, who again have been nothing short of unlucky. A strong looking team on paper, but just not performing. Really unfortunate.

And as much as we may hate it… gotta give it up for The Hozz, who is running away with things right now, his Tantrums only falling once so far this year. It’s a dark day for happiness.

Some Meaningless Trade Chat

The biggest trade in a while will go through tonight, after a hard negotiating session between myself and Neil McC. Losing my quarterback for the season, in a QB heavy league, well that was painful. I’m still pretty frustrated. First reaction was to grab Ryan Fitzpatrick (I know, I know, but look at the numbers…) of the wire, but it turns out McComb beat me to him. Which is a pain in the tits. 

But anyway, we worked out a deal to sort me out with someone. As much as I adore my team and how i’ve built it this year, it became quite clear I was going to have to give up one of my studs to get a fairly consistent QB. Neil wanted Calvin Johnson. Sob.

So I send Megatron, Fred Jackson and Michael Bush to Neil, and get back Kyle Orton, my new Fearless Leader, and Ryan Torain. Not bad, I guess. Still broken up with sadness though.

Meet my new Fearless Leader. How many drunk photos of Kyle can I get into this blog this year? Had two and counting so far…

And the Bulls and Hustle have swapped Matt Cassel and Dustin Keller. Ok. Chan clearly covets his pretty little Jet players (tbf Keller is having a pretty great year), and Burr sure doesn’t need him, some guy called Gates is his starting TE. Chris clearly needs a QB this week as both Wrangler man and McNabb are questionable for sunday. Smart move by both.

Ok, ’til next time guys. I have unemployed moping to do.

The following is a rebuttal to this.

One word, Glen – predictable. Whereas some of the things you say are true, even more of them are patently untrue. I may not have the showmanship of your writing style but it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to rely on emotive language to get my argument across because the cold hard facts are all I need.

Michael, the truth is next year you’re going to be a junior doctor living in the West End of Glasgow. You’re not going to see any of the things Glen talked about. Your job, your friends and the West End – that’s all you need.

Here is an unadulterated account of 51 hours of my life.

Friday 20:30

Finally, the first draft of my MTAS is done. At this point I’m damn hungry and I couldn’t be arsed to cook. I ask John if he wants to make me dinner.

Friday 21:00

Of course he does. So I pop round for pork stroganoff. Cheers John.

Just shooting the shit.

Friday 21:45

"There’s nowhere good to drink…" – This is the second most ridiculous thing Glen said in his post.

The West End is full of amazing pubs.

And the girls here just let you lie on their laps and shit.

Saturday 09:00

Man, I love Saturday morning because Saturday morning is 5-a-side football. I love 5-a-side football, which is why I love Saturday morning.

I’m not sure where they imported this guy from.

Saturday 12:10

"…the only good food is in the Chinese restaurants…" – This is the first most ridiculous thing Glen said in his post.
 

The Banana Leaf. There are only two places I’d rather have lunch at on a Saturday afternoon and one of them involves Karen Gillan and a TARDIS.
 

The Banana Leaf serves authentic South Indian cuisine in an unpretentious manner and at unpretentious prices. It’s also handily located 7 minutes from my flat and 45 seconds away from the front door of Yorkhill Children’s Hospital. Have you ever had a masala dosa before? I bet Glen hasn’t. Look at the size of that m’effer. There’s a potato curry inside that bad boy. Actually, I need to scranalyse this place.

The truth is – Glasgow is full of great places to eat, of all cuisines as well. The next time you’re up? We’re going to hit Rumours. The best eatery in the whole of Glasgow, and it’s Malaysian. There are so many other places I wish I had time to tell you about.

Saturday 12:30

Time for some retail therapy at one of the best cities to shop in the UK.
 

Here’s us walking up Buchanan Street. Ronan joins us.

Just shooting the shit at Pret.

Saturday 17:40

Home time. I bought some chaotic socks, a pimpin’ shirt and a sweet ass hat.

Look at the fancy places doctors live in, eh?

I wasn’t really in the mood to do any work so off to Ronan’s to shoot more shit, watch X and eat some meat off of a bone. Male bonding.

Sunday 11:58

A text from Jonny Baillie wakes me up. What an exciting day – The Banana Show returns from New York and Boston. So we’re off to pick him up.

Check out the sweet ass hat I bought on Saturday.

It was an emotional time to say the least.

But the big man is back.

Sunday 18:00

It’s already 6pm… There is literally no better ending to the week than the NFL crew pub meet. Glen, I know you miss this. I know.

Monday 00:00

So, before I knew it, I shot some shit, I bought a sweet ass hat and the Jets beat the Broncos. The weekend was done and I was happy. You could be part of this.

0.

What’s 0? Well that’s the number of neds I saw. The number of high-rises I saw. The number of crime scenes I saw. The amount of rain I saw. The number of people I talked to who will actually die at 54 years old.

And I don’t even know where Calton is.

Here is the email from Irish Mike that Phil and I received this evening…

"So I’m having to decide between Glasgow and the East coast for jobs next year. Can you guys (Phil=for, Glen=against) outline why a 23-year-old cool dude should move (or not move) to Glasgow city in less than 100 words or something? Then I’ll post a decision of similar length."

100 words is not nearly enough for me to express my strong feelings on this issue. So i’m going to ignore that rule. I can’t decide which direction I should attack from. There certainly are a number of angles I could go for, and it’s very difficult to choose which would be most effective. ALAS! I can only do my best. Startiiiiiiiiiing…. NOW.

Glasgow is goddamned awful. Average life expectancy in Calton, Glasgow? 54. Average life expectancy in the Gaza Strip? Over 70. 

Quick game, Glasgow or Gaza!

Answers on a postcard.

Recent Crimes in Glasgow

‘The Gerbil’ was shot outside an Asda. His second drive by shooting, by the way. Didn’t survive this one. His pal recently had his head powerdrilled. Nice.

Common Glaswegian Misconceptions

Here are the ones I hear the most.

Everyone’s just sooooo friendly!

That’s bullshit. I was putting a case of apples on the shelf in the local supermarket I worked in in Glasgow, when an old woman, legit old, 90 or so, caught my eye. I say ‘Hi there, anything I can help you with?’ Her retort? ‘Fuck off, son’. Swear to god that’s true. The people of Glasgow are anything but friendly. They are bigoted, racist, full of that ‘working-class-hero complex’ bullshit, and on rainy days (read: every day) can be full on nasty. The amount of times I saw bus drivers throw folk off buses in the pissing rain, saw kids launch bricks at cars going by, saw drunk people fighting with glass bottles on the road… too many small examples, but not once in my year there did I stop and think, ‘Boy, he/she/it sure was friendly!’. D’you know who’s friendly? Grain dryers in Angus. That’s a friendly bunch. 

It’s such a beautiful city, I mean, the architecture!

That’s bullshit. I hate whenever people resort to ‘oooooh the architecture’. That’s a pretty surefire sign that yr city is rubbish, has nothing to see and nothing to do in it. The big university building is nice. As is the Kelvingrove. Everything else is just red. 

That isn’t beautiful, it’s just red. And the red is really only in the nicer bits. Which is, oh, about 3% of the city. The rest of Glasgow looks like this;

And because it rains every fucking day, the oppressive gray-ness of it all… it’s really hard to describe. I’m a generally happy dude, and I enjoy life. Glasgow in winter drove me to a cup of wine at lunchtimes, just to take the edge off. 

A recent headline describing what the latest Thomas Cook travel guide said about the city in question…

Visitors to Glasgow are being warned to expect sectarianism, relentless rain, drink-fuelled violence and locals who live on a diet of deep-fried food.

It clearly didn’t see fit to mention the other unbearable side of Glasgow society, the self-righteous ignorant douchebags that populate much of the West End. Glasgow students… god. Michael, think the vapid, vacuosness of St Andrews girls, but 85% uglier. Think about the worst stupid indie boys with appalling opinions on television and music and film then give them awful accents and a fertile environment for those opinions to fester. This is the city that gave us Glasvegas, Michael. And Frightened Rabbit. You’ll hear some crap about the ‘thriving music scene’… it’s all bullshit. Trust me, I was part of it. The bands are shit, the people are nasty, and the venues stink, have no atmosphere and everyone talks over the good bands. 

Then there’s just the regular plebs, vomming up green bile on the buses, smashing every car window along a mile-long stretch of road, setting fire to cars for fun in the car park right outside my apartment building…

It fucking sucks.

Pretty nice at Christmas time though

I’ll call it quits here, but just to pre-empt Phil’s retort…

He’ll say, ‘you lived in a rubbish part of town and you didn’t do much!’

These things are true. But that doesn’t mean i’m not in a position to judge. My number 89 bus was a circle route, and when I was bored, pre employment, I used to just jump off somewhere and explore. I saw a lot of the city. It was all rubbish. 

There’s nowhere good to drink, the music scene sucks, the only good food is in the Chinese restaurants, the locals are rude, you’re never more than .5 miles away from a disgusting crime scene, and everywhere smells like chip fat.

But the worst? The most intolerable thing about it? That accent. It makes Mancs sound like goddamned genuises. 

Haw, goan geez wan o’ those eh pal?’

Fuck off, pal.

I’m not even close to a founding member, yet i’ve pretty much taken over the Mango in recent weeks, which makes me feel v. v. self conscious, and pretty guilty. So it would be cool if you dudes could do some blogging. I know that you’re all busy saving lives and being Future Businessmen of Tomorrow and all that, but, well you have to prioritise. 

Anyway, week five is in the books, and this is where we’re at.

Click to read more.

Superchallenge Standings

Our first weekly 5-0 goes to Steve Currie, holy mackerel! I felt like there was some great value in last week’s game lines, and was certain I was winning some money from my friends at Paddy Power. I was v. v. wrong, on many levels. But in a week of upsets, great job Scottish Steve, which takes him to top of the standings.

Scottish Steve 7-3

Neil Mc 6-4

Neil F 6-4

Chan 5-5

Glen 5-5

Hozz 5-5

MTL Week 5 News N’ Notes

Can’t be bothered doing the game by game recaps, because they get really repetitive and who gives a shit anyway. So i’ll just stick to a few observations from a competitive weekend’s fantasy action…

Game o’ the week

Tantrum 96- 93 Giant Rats

The Rats bad luck continues with a three point loss to the league leaders, even though he had to start David Garrard, who somehow scraped together a really great 21 point game. How Michael will wish he had started McGahee or Maclin, who held the potentially winning points but sat on the bench. How we all wish he had as well, because now stupid M-Hozzle is 4-1 and full on runnin’ shit with fellow division leader Chris ‘Burr’ Burrows, who himself had a comfy 20 victory over the Goblins. 

Amazingly, these two are joined only by … Michael ‘Johnty’ Johnston, wat, in having winning records so far this season. You may remember Johnston’s Bristow Boilermakers from being totally freaking awful for all of last season. There is clearly something in the water in the more murderous end of Didsbury.

Amusing Anecdote Highlighting Friendships and the Futility of Fantasy Football o’ the Week

Neil F’s Biloxi Box Turtles outgunned Scottish Steve’s Red Tops by 7 this week. That’s a tough enough loss. What makes this worse is that while Derrick Mason slopped away for 4 points for the ‘Tops, on the bench sat Buffalo’s Steve Johnson, Scottish Stevie’s most recent waiver-wire pick up. 5 catches for 46, and… TWO TOUCHDOWNS?! From Ryan Fitzpatrick?! Wat. I never saw that coming. But a certain Scottish Stevie did…

Sadly for Scottish Steve, his lovely weekend away in Stirling was marred by the usual return trip to St Andrews on a Stagecoach Fife bus. Needles to say, Steve ended up stuck in Glenrothes for an hour, at a time where he would have much rather been home, listening to football, and switching his new waiver wire pick up Steve Johnson into the Red Tops’ line up.

:D

Standings after Week 5

Weekly Studs and Goats

This was going to be a bigger feature this week but i’m getting a headache due to two surrounding circumstances. 1) Watching Scotland and 2) listening to my mother rant about Scotland/universities/politicians/me. I could do with a long walk off a pretty short pier.

Stud of the week though, Matt Forte! 32 points! Unreal. Oh wait. He was on Chan’s bench. Singlehandedly costing the Hustle a win. Ouch.

Stud of the week on no one’s roster? Oakland special teams. 29 points. That could have won someone a match up, but then again, no one in their right mind would have started them. Right?

Goat of the week? Regardless of the fact he would never ever ever be on any of our rosters, but… Todd Collins. Great job, Todd Collins. How do you like this stat line… 6 of 16, 32 yards, 4INTS. That’s a -7 fantasy points on the day. 

I would do anything, I mean anything, for a Todd Collins Show next Sunday when the Bears host my flaky ‘hawks at Soldier Field. But instead we’ll get Cutler, and the Martz pass happy stuff which is just perfectly suited for picking away at the short and slow Seattle secondary. Also they have no one to take Cutler’s head off Umenyiora style. 

Bad week coming…

Click to read.

Glen

Saints (-6.5)

Texans (-3)

Packers (-2.5)

Falcons (-3)

Colts (-8)

Neil Mc

Lions (-3)

Jags (PICK)

Falcons (-3)

Chargers (-6)

Packers (-2.5)

Steve

Ravens (-7)

Colts (-8)

Falcons (-3)

Bears (-1.5)

Eagles (+3.5)

Chanman

Packers (-2.5)

Saints (-6.5)

Jags (PICK)

Rams (+3)

Eagles (+3.5)

Hozzle

Packers (-2.5)

Saints (-6.5)

Falcons (-3)

Texans (-3)

Panthers (+1.5)

Neil F

Jags (PICK)

Bengals (-6.5)

Packers (-2.5)

Bears (-1.5)

Chargers (-6)

Happy hunting young team.