ESPNightmares

I just finished watching the Monday Night Football doubleheader on ESPN, which means that I've now seen the replay of Tom Brady's knee turning to spaghetti roughly 5,000 times. I'm not usually one to cry out, "Won't someone think of the children?!?", but what the hell is ESPN trying to do here? It gets worse every time I see it, and I'm not even remotely a Patriots fan. The only thing I can think of is that they're trying to stimulate television sales in Boston. I imagine Bill Simmons took a blunt object to his flatscreen about 3,000 replays ago.

One of the most traumatic moments of my childhood was watching Denver Broncos running back Gerald Wilhite get his foot twisted 270 degrees in the wrong direction on national television over... and over... and over again thanks to a sadistic replay operator. Everyone in my dad's generation can tell you all about Lawrence Taylor snapping Joe Theisman's leg, and younger sports fans will still shudder if you mention Willis McGahee's knee injury (click here if you feel like vomiting). And now I'm going to be seeing Brady crumple to the ground in my sleep for a month. Thanks, guys.

In other news of the hideously ugly, our neighbors have recently purchased (or fashioned) a six foot-tall statue of a rooster made of chrome car parts. They put it up in their backyard, presumably to frighten squirrels or school children or something. Not content to ugly up the daytime view from our back deck, they also installed lighting to illuminate that motherfucker at night. Seriously. There's six feet of angry metallic poultry gleaming outside my window right now. I object to homeowners' associations on general principle, but I'm staring to see how some people might think they'd be a good idea. If I were more adventurous (or inebriated), the urge to decorate it would be damn well overpowering. Maybe that's why they put in the lighting?