Introducing the Friday Random Ten + 5:50 percent more of the same old crap,for the same low price!

So I've, uh, been kind of lazy lately when it comes to blogging. You know it, I know it, and the American people know it. Obviously that'll pick up some when football season starts, but I'm not waiting until then to get started, dear reader. Instead, I'm going to be pumping up the Friday Random Ten from now on. I figure any douchebag can hit shuffle on his iPod and write down the first 10 songs it craps out, but I'm not just any douchebag, oh no -- I'm going to be bolstering these with some actual content, a weekly list of five things that . . . fit a predetermined category randomly chosen by me. Maybe it'll be inspired by something I read or saw, maybe it'll be inspired by nothing more than a fight I got into with a friend of mine after seeing who could turn up an Evan Williams bottle and chug the longest without stopping. But either way, it'll be, you know, something.

This week's Somewhat Less Random Five, inspired in part by an EDSBS post from a few weeks back, is Five College Bowl Games We Don't Have Now, But Should. I mean, we've got 32 already, what's five more going to hurt? Right? Right?



Halliburton Capital Bowl
FedEx Field, Landover, Maryland
December 30
Notre Dame vs. MAC

If Notre Dame is truly "America’s Team," then it must be a debilitating morale crusher for America to have to watch each and every January as the Irish truck off to yet another BCS bowl they kinda sorta maybe didn't deserve and get curb-stomped by yet another more qualified at-large team. The Capital Bowl kills two birds with one stone: It lets the Domers prove their manhood by annihilating a far weaker squad to get their jollies (a staple of Bush administration foreign policy for years now), but it also provides a safe place to stash ND instead of letting them take up space in yet another BCS berth. In case the Irish hit a really down year, Halliburton will be ready and willing to pay off as many referees as necessary to ensure a predictable, America-friendly outcome.



Kraft Foods Windy City Bowl
Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois
December 27
Big 10 vs. Big East

If we can have a bowl in Detroit, certainly we should be able to have one in the City of Big Shoulders, which has better sightseeing, more history, and a substantially lower chance of getting killed. It'll be cold outside, that's for sure, but that's all the more reason to load up before the game on fresh-brewed beer and piping hot deep-dish pizza at any one of the city's numerous fine dining establishments. Bowl Week activities for the players include baggage-carousel rides at O'Hare and the Ferris Bueller Fantasy Tour of the city's most famous landmarks; one lucky fan will get to take the field at halftime and compete with beloved Bears signal-caller Rex Grossman to see who can throw more footballs through the hole in the giant box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in two minutes. (Sexy Rexy gets a four-ball head start, though, just to make things fair.)



Alaska Bowl presented by Alaska Airlines
Anchorage Football Stadium, Anchorage, Alaska
December 13
WAC vs. Sun Belt

We've got a bowl in the other non-contiguous state; we've got bowls in places like Boise and Albuquerque. Honestly, how much worse could Alaska be? The major drawback to this game is that the biggest dedicated football stadium in the state of Alaska only seats like 4,500 people, but let's be honest -- if we make this a WAC-vs.-Sun Belt matchup, most of the teams who would be in line to participate only put that many butts in the stadium for their own home games anyway. Fun Bowl Week activities for the players could include an Alaskan cruise, a salmon-throwing competition at the Alaska Airlines freight terminal at Anchorage International, and 18 holes at the North Star Golf Club, North America's northernmost golf course, in nearby Fairbanks. ("Nearby" being a relative term in a state that's more than twice as big as Texas, of course.) The temperature in mid-December will more than likely be somewhere in the high teens, so bring some gloves, wimps!




TAM Linhas Aereas Rio Bowl
Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
January 1
SEC vs. Big 12

If we can hold a bowl game in fricking Havana, then by God, we should be able to have one in Rio. Unfortunately the American football season ends long before Carnaval, but that doesn't mean we can't have one rocking-ass New Year's celebration in the land that brought us Alessandra Ambrosio, a bunch of one-named soccer players, and the thong bathing suit. And what better way to introduce Brazil to real football than to bring them two hard-hitting squads from the SEC and Big 12 going at it hammer and tongs in South America’s largest stadium? The place holds 97,000 people, but there'll be enough churrasco, Caipirinhas, and luscious, luscious booty for everyone. If there’s a better bowl location in the Western Hemisphere, fucking name it.



Foster's Australia Bowl
Telstra Stadium, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
January 2
SEC vs. Pac-10

Effete Pac-10 football snobs like Heismanpundit are always bitching about how SEC teams don't ever travel outside the Southeast, even for out-of-conference games. All right, fine: Howsabout we make a Southeastern Conference team travel as far from the Southeast as it is humanly possible to go -- to the other goddamn side of the world? Will that shut you up? We'll even pit them against a Pac-10 squad, as there is currently no bowl game matching up teams from these two conferences. (Actually, this is mainly just an excuse to pair up the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Oregon State Beavers in a game, which would be hilarious. Go on, just ponder it for a sec.) Thrill as teams from two historic leagues brave weapons-grade jet lag, the gastric consequences of "vegemite," and toilets that flush the opposite way to claim supremacy in one of the most exotic venues ever to host a football game. Halftime entertainment: Kylie Minogue joins Colin Hay and whatever remaining members of Men At Work we can scrape together for a stirring duet of "Down Under."

Awesome, right? Yeah, I know. And now the Ten:

1. Avenue Q cast, "The More You Ruv Someone"
2. Depeche Mode, "Happiest Girl" (Pulsating orbital vocal mix)
3. The Bloodhound Gang, "Lift Your Head Up High (And Blow Your Brains Out)"
4. Talking Heads, "Psycho Killer"
5. The Farm, "To the Ages"
6. Pet Shop Boys, "West End Girls" (Sasha remix)
7. Pearl Jam, "Go"
8. All Saints, "Pure Shores"
9. Dave Attell, "Shaved Pubes" *
10. DJ Shadow, "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain"

* This is from Attell's stand-up CD Skanks for the Memories; he didn't actually write a song about shaved pubes. "I have shaved my pubes. Not 'cause I wanted to -- I was involved in a horrible gum accident. Had to work a little frontier medicine."

Your own Random Tens and/or bowl-game ideas are welcome in the comments.