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Line of the Week:
“He picked WHO?” – Heard repeatedly during my fantasy football drafts.

If you don’t like fantasy football, you may want to skip this.
So one of the things I discovered last weekend was that, indeed, it is pretty easy to eat a hot dog quickly if you snap it in half and shove it into your mouth. Mind you, how Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut could eat over 50 in twelve minutes is still beyond me, but I can see how they do it.

As many women are well aware, August is the time of year where there isn’t much television on, and husbands disappear for hours poring over various fantasy football magazines, in preparation for their upcoming drafts. That’s not to say that women don’t compete in these things, but I don’t think they’re as moronically obsessed with it as we are.

Last weekend happened to be my turn, and since there wasn’t that much on television that I’m not covering below, let’s see how I fared.

Saturday was the draft for my Dynasty league – a full scale, salary cap league that includes individual defensive players as well as the traditional offensive players. Because there is a free agency period that happens in May for this league, much of the groundwork is already done by the draft and most people tend to focus on rookies and filling positions. In my case, this amounted to getting four rookies (Joseph Addai, Demetrius Williams, Travis Wilson and Stephen Gostkowski) and filling my defensive slots with younger players.

The end result of all this is a team that will probably end up around .500 and about $4 million in cap space. I should be able to keep a strong core of defensive players, meaning that next year I can concentrate on improving my offence (which includes more than a few grizzled veterans).

Sunday was a draft for my keeper league, which really is somewhere in between a keeper and dynasty league – we get to hang on to 1 QB, 1 K, a combination of 4 RB/WR/TE, and a combination of 2 D/O/ST. So basically, most of the “stud” players are off the board. If you’ve followed me thus far, chances are you know what the hell I’m talking about.

I was drafting sixth, and given that I had three fairly strong running backs and a questionable QB in Drew Brees, I was in the market for another quarterback. But in mocking up the draft, I noted that the guy with the second pick had only Alex Smith – which is a huge signal that he just might pick another quarterback. As it turns out (after attempts at my part to get his pick), he did pick a quarterback – rookie Vince Young. Which meant that my pick was still available in the first round, and I got who I wanted – Matt Hasselbeck, probably the best quarterback on the board.

The rest of the draft pretty much consisted of filling positions and trying to take the best players available. With many top names already taken, it’s a matter of looking at number 2 receivers and taking some risks with the dreaded running back by committee.

And because I’m not enough of a glutton for punishment, I’ve joined the IP writers league. Patrick Nguyen and I will be fighting for Asian supremacy. Or something like that.

IP Linkage:
Eric takes a break from ripping Bill Simmons to rip Peter King. Personally, I think Eric should rip on Skip Bayless more, but nobody really cares about Skip Bayless. So Simmons it is – personally I like Simmons’ columns, but I do think that because of its easy-to-read style plus Simmons’ status as “one of us” you need guys like Eric to help set the record straight.

Mathan takes over WoQW in a must-read column.

Matt Basilo is back and he got hit on by a Cougar. As an aside, one of my fantasy football teams is called the Calgary Cougars. We’re working on superimposing Stifler’s Mom overtop of the Thundercats logo for my logo.

Another reminder that Travis is giving away copies of Prison Break season one.

Roxanne Wilson talks with Bryce Gahagan.

Reverend Sick is back after dealing with being a new father, and he talks about Ultimate Fight Night (on tonight!)

The Week… In Hindsight:
‘Canadian Idol’
Another week, another elimination for a Singer Who Is Clearly Better Than Tyler Or Chad. But at this point, song selection is critical, and clearly, Ashley Coulter misread what the audience wanted to hear.

‘Hell’s Kitchen’ (5.3/9, 2nd)
Thankfully, Heather won the final competition, but there is a valid question as to whether Virginia – who clearly has a better palette and seems to have better potential – should have been given the restaurant. Personally, I would say no. Here’s why:

Atmosphere: Had the waterfall been completed properly (it was barely working) Virginia would’ve had an excellent feature piece there but I think she was overambitious there. Carpenters on TLC shows have difficulties putting small water pump projects together, so I knew that she’d get screwed there. The fact that the crew got the thing somewhat working is very impressive, to me.

Heather’s room was a bit too busy for me, but overall it reflected her personality quite well. Except that it was probably a bit more “vibrant” than I’d think she is. And possibly a bit too self-indulgent. Still, despite Ramsey’s hesitance over some of her choices, none of the diners went “well, this place kinda sucks”, so it probably wasn’t a huge demerit.

Menu: Virginia was probably the most creative person of the contestants, but the creativity did her in. She didn’t trust in her crew to do the final plating, and it slowed them down. Not to mention that her meals were rather complex. Heather, knowing that they’d be trusting an entirely new menu to a crew on short notice, kept things simple so that her crew would be less likely to screw things up (although there is apparently no “right” amount of dressing to put on a napa salad.) It seemed to work, as I’d guess that the Red team finished up well ahead of the Blue (if you assume some editorial trickery regarding the finish times).

Palette: Heather showed just enough to get by. Virginia was presumably much better – they really didn’t focus too much on this because it was so lopsided.

Teams: Virginia chose Keith first, and Heather chose Rachel second. No surprise there, as Keith was the best chef out of the twelve, and Heather and Rachel were possibly a lot closer than they showed on TV. Virginia then chose… Tom. OK, I get that she and Sara didn’t get along, and Giacomo is a f*ckup, but even with the chicken issues, she should’ve chosen Garrett. I guess she wanted a girl on the team. Heather then, of course, chose Ga- oh wait, she chose Sara. Although that actually seemed smart in hindsight, since Sara wasn’t trying to manipulate her way to the final two anymore. And Virginia then chose Mophead as her final chef. Again, I’m thinking because of the chicken issues, but hey, YOU DON’T HAVE TO PUT GARRETT ON CHICKEN.

Leadership: Heather was obviously in control of her kitchen, plus she managed to earn their respect from the get go. It was pretty obvious that Keith, Tom and Mophead didn’t give a shit about whether Virginia won or lost, and their respect probably went out the window when she gave into the bribe demands. On the line, Heather again kept things simple, calling out “steak” and “fish” where Virginia called out “chicken roulade” and “braised short ribs”. Big deal, you say, but it’s a subtle, important detail. You keep the words to a minimum, and you reduce the risk of confusion. Also in the subtle department, Heather had that “I demand respect” tone in her voice, while Virginia, despite coaching from Ramsey, never had that. I think that this was pretty much where Heather won this competition.

Ramsey: Maybe it was the editing, but during the actual dinner service, I saw Ramsey coaching Virginia a lot more than Heather. To me, it seemed like Ramsey was saying “I’m doing everything in my power to help you win”, but it wasn’t enough. He obviously saw a lot of potential in Virginia (one of three things he saw in her), but the leadership was lacking, and that’s something that, if it isn’t there, has to be learned over time. And the Red Rock Casino didn’t have that luxury.

‘Treasure Hunters’ (2.9/5, 4th)
So they left the finale until next week, where I guess we’ll have some sort of ‘Mole’-style retrospective with the teams and Laird McIntosh. Clearly the Geniuses have the inside track, but I get the feeling in the back of my head that this is yet another red herring that they’re going through. We’ll see on Monday, I guess.

‘Rock Star: Supernova’ (4.0/6, 2nd)
Zayra’s incredible, improbable run on Supernova finally came to an end here. You may not have liked her, but you can’t deny that the girl always gave it her all onstage, and it was probably that passion and drive that caused the “band” to keep her when she was up for elimination. But with eight singers left, there was no more putting off the elimination for entertainment purposes, and she was done.

‘Prison Break’
It’s back next week. Oh hells, yeah.

That’s it for this week.

Kevin has been an Insider since 2003, writing on a variety of topics ranging from The Amazing Race to Mixed Martial Arts. His current hobbies include Fantasy Football, Sporcle, travelling, making liberal use of his DVR and wondering what the heck he's gonna do when his two daughters are old enough to date. You can follow Kevin on Twitter (@starvenger).