Week 9 NFL Picks with Goose - World Fucking Champions!

Apologies for not having these picks out on Friday, but with the Phillies winning the World Series, schedules go out the window. By 10:30 AM Friday, I was Schlitzed up and looking for a place to urinate in a crowd of 2 million. But that's a story for a fetish pay site and not this wholesome, family blog. Just shoot me an email and $4 and you can have the whole sordid, sexy story.

Anyway, as I was saying, it was just impossible for me to get my picks up yesterday. But that doesn't mean I'm going to shirk my responsibility and give you nothing! No, I'm taking time out of my busy weekend of doing nothing to update this blog and post my picks. And while I had a bit of a stumble last week, I'm still turning a profit (with the juice on there as well) and I'm not looking to stop now.

I realize of course, though that there are plenty of you who still are a little skeptical of my pics, and I can certainly understand that. In fact, I ran into a regular reader last week who point blank said, "no one is reading your sites for your NFL picks." While it stung tremendously, and I contemplated jumping off a cliff (a small one, but still) I could see where he had a point. While we here at The Popcorn Trick enjoy sports, they're are few people who look at us as gambling experts. Though our records say otherwise, it's not easy to change that public perception.

And I'm not going to start here. Sure, I could give you a bunch of meaningless stats that make it look like I've done a lot of research to come to my conclusions, but that would be disingenuous. Therefore I've decided to take a different approach to encourage you to read my pics...hot chicks.

That's right, I am labeling each game based on a famous celebrity (or famous hot character in a movie) so that you may enjoy at least looking at my picks a little more. It's the least I could do.

I hope you enjoy this kind of research more than the stats. I know I certainly have.

On the flip side, the picks - and the ladies...



As always, picks are CAPITALIZED and bold.

The Bijou Phillips Game

Jets @ BUFFALO -4.5

Here it is week 9 and it still seems like people are waiting for Buffalo to fall apart. I don't think they're going to fall apart. I think they have a good, solid squad that gets them into the playoffs. Once in the playoffs, it might be a different story, like they're just kinda glad they got there. But they're not going to be ready for that level. In fact, I'm gonna say they'll even be surprised at what gets thrown at them.

You know, kinda like Bijou Phillips in Havoc. If you've seen it, you know what I mean. If you haven't, well...seek it out and fast forward to about 57 minutes in. You'll see what I mean then. And please don't ask me what I thought of the movie. I've only seen about 4 minutes of it in total.



The Catherine Martin Game

DETROIT @ Chicago -9



I'm pretty sure I'd rather be stuck down in a well with the Senator's daughter than be subjected to this game.

I'm 99% Brooke Smith played Catherine Martin in Silence of the Lambs, but after looking at her imdb.com bio page, I had to triple check. This is the same woman? She's a chameleon!

The Megyn Price Game (aka The Sit-com Wife Game)

JACKSONVILLE -7 @ Cincinnati

You know the drill. Funny, unattractive men always seem to have a sitcom wife they'd never pull in real life. Grounded for Life was no exception. Of course, because everyone knew this, producers tried to make it at least somewhat plausible. Ergo Donal Logue didn't marry Courtney Cox, he married Megyn Price. That's Jacksonville. They're not going to do anything flashy, or surprise anyone, but they're professional, have a good coach and know what they're doing. Right now they're plugging on, attempting to keep its head above water long enough to make a run into and then through the playoffs. Cincinnati is trying to...well I'm not sure what it's trying to do.

The Kristen Wiig Game

Baltimore -3 @ CLEVELAND

At first glance, Cleveland doesn't look like the good pick here. It seems unconventional. But in the NFL, unconventional is oftentimes the way to go. It's the same with Kristen Wiig. Sure, she doesn't get the "ohmygod she's beautiful" comments, but that means you're looking past her. And that's when you realize you're an idiot.

This just feels like a game Cleveland is going to win. Cleveland showed everyone a few weeks ago they're not as bad as people made them out to be. That every other week they have mede themselves out to be as bad as everyone thought they were is besides the point. I'm taking the frisky team hear at home. And I'm taking Kristen Wiig to be frisky. With Amy Poehler gone, she better be, or you're gonna hear the cyclical "SNL should be cancelled" comments real soon.

The Rhea Perlman Game

Tampa Bay @ KANSAS CITY -10.5

I love Carla Tortelli and everything but let's face it, when you're faced with a number of women and one of them happens to be Rhea Perlman, she's going to be at the bottom of the list. Doesn't that feel like Kansas City's season to this point? And it's not like there's a huge population of people begging for Tampa Bay to be on national television every week (thank god). In fact, watching this game might be what it's like when a peeping tom stumbles across the Devito household's bedroom window.


The Jessica Alba Game

Houston @ MINNESOTA -1.5

I'm going to get torched for this one...but you know how the guys in your high school drooled over the head cheerleader, and you looked at her and wondered why everyone thought she was all that? No? Well then you were one of the guys drooling and I feel bad for you. Seriously, Alba doesn't do it for me. I'm not saying she's not stunningly attractive, I just don't think she is anything special than all the other "it" girls that have come and gone in Hollywood. Sort of like Minnesota. It seems that before the season people were jumping on the Minnesota bandwagon, simply because Adrian Peterson had a great first year. But what else did they have? A below average quarterback and a decent defense. Enough to get out of the division? Time will tell...

All that said, I'm still taking them this week. Houston on the road? I'm not an idiot.

The Jennifer Aniston Game

Arizona -9 @ ST. LOUIS

I'm guessing every day Aniston goes out the door she wants to make Brad Pitt jealous. I know she's supposedly moved on, but think about it. When she was with Pitt she was #1. She most likely pranced around figuring there was nothing she couldn't have or get. On top of the world, beautiful, no way did she see Pitt leaving her. In fact, there was only one chance he would have - unfortunately that happened. Seriously, as beautiful as Aniston is, I've yet to run into anyone (male that is) that blames Pitt for leaving her for Jolie. Amazing.

Kurt Warner is going back to play the team he took to the Super Bowl. I bet he didn't think after that historic run there'd be any way this current situation would come to fruition. Let's see how he plays it. Does he cover the points, or try to make everyone jealous by hooking up with a somewhat popular male guitarist in hopes of making everyone in St. Louis jealous. Or, well you know what I mean. St. Louis isn't Jolie (they're not even Jolie's brother at this point) but I don't see them folding up shop just yet.

The Angelina Jolie Game

Green Bay -1.5 @ TENNESSEE

Speaking of Jolie, she's still the diamond standard right? Quick, name someone universally sought after as the sexiest person in the world right now. Sure, you'll get some wildcard answers, but average it all out and it has to be Jolie, right? Well, that's Tennessee in the NFL. I don't see how Green Bay can be favored on the road against an undefeated team, but Cline gets the lines, so I'll go with the big guns. Normally, I'd say the line is telling me something, but that hasn't helped me all year, so why should I keep listening?




The Cindy Crawford Game

Miami @ DENVER -4

Some people think she's lost a step. Whatever. She's beautiful and defying time as the years pass. Just like Denver. Ok, sure - she's not on top like she once was. She no longer adorns college dorm walls the way she did in the early 90s. She no longer sits on the bleachers of every male teens' fantasy spread eagled and ready to give into whatever fantasy your acne covered mind can conjour.

But she's still got it.

Mike Shanahan does too. And I'm not taking a Miami squad that has done nothing in Denver until I see something more out of them.


The Britney Spears Game

Dallas @ NY GIANTS -9



Big NFC matchup each team with a batshit insane receiver. Kinda like Britney Spears. Both are talented, and both are ready to blow their career up in any given second. Look for the Cowboys to get smoked and their Britney Spears to get even more crazy.

The Lindsay Lohan Game

Atlanta -6 @ OAKLAND


Sometimes she's a wreck; sometimes she's gorgeous. One minute she's dating Hollywood hunks; the next she's canoodling with lesbian DJs. I can't get a read on either of these teams, so I'm taking the home dog. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if I saw tomorrow Atlanta won 45 million to 3. Ok, it would be a little surprising, since that's physically impossible to do in 60 minutes of football, but I wouldn't be stunned.


The Paris Hilton/Nicole Richie Game

PHILADELPHIA -3.5 @ Seattle

These two coaches go way back, being two disciples of the Bill Walsh offense. Both in Green Bay, they then went on to coach different teams, all the while slowly morphing into the same person. In fact, you get Craig Stadtler in the same room with these two and you could film Multiplicity 2.

The Cheerleader from Heroes Game

New England @ INDIANAPOLIS PK

As recently as a year ago, the only thing you could do to get away from the buzz of this game is call in Michael Caine:



Now all it takes is Jerry Seinfeld and some crappy animation:



What does that have to do with Heroes and more importantly the game? Not much, I just wanted to get a Michael Caine reference in here. Actually that's not entirely true...just like Heroes used to be awesome and now it's crappy, so is this matchup. But the show still has that hot cheerleader chick so people are going to watch. And this matchup still has Peyton Manning and bad blood, so people are going to watch. I just hope he can do enough to put this awfulness behind him:



Such promise. Such disappointment.

The Jennifer Garner Game

PITTSBURGH -1.5 @ Washington

Big time ass whooping for both teams. Both will look good doing it too. Bring your camera. This one's gonna be hot!







And no - I have no good reason to link this clip, but I doubt I'll hear complaints.

Sunday television - a guide to flipping channels

Sunday afternoons are usually reserved for football. However, when your team isn't playing, sometimes it can be hard to stay focused on the games your local CBS and FOX affiliates are giving you. That's what happens when you don't have the Dish Network.

This is the exact scenario I found myself in yesterday. With the Eagles on a bye week, my rooting interest in football took a week off as well. That left me with a lax attitude toward football in general (not to mention that since the Phillies are in the World Series, football really hasn't taken hold yet). So while I had every intention in the world to watch football on my couch yesterday, my remote began to wonder.

It didn't help that FOX gave me the Gians/49ers game, while CBS gave me the titanic Steelers/Bengals battle. It's amazing I didn't turn off the television completely and go outside to enjoy the day. But I'm a warrior and I battled through that horrible, brief thought. On the flip side, I'll share what kept me inside...



My first stray from the football games occurred when I found Angelie Jolie on TNT in Lara Croft: Cradle of Life. The second installment of the possibly successful franchise (I really have no idea) had the guy who played Caesar from HBO's Rome as the bad guy, as well as a well coiffed Gerard Butler, pre 300. But let's be honest, I'm not watching for those two guys - I'm watching for Jolie and her outfit changes.

Sadly, if you remember LC: CoL, other than the fantastic intro (Jolie in her skintight silver diving suit) the rest of her outfits don't hold up. She wears safari gear a lot, and a bunch of Japanese robes. This is not the Lara Croft I signed up for. Anyway, it begrudgingly made the remote control loop, but not much time was spent with it every time I flipped to it. I did find, in researching this story, that you can apparently watch the entire movie on youtube. Start here if you care to.

What did get a lot of my attention (after watching botched field goals and interceptions in the Giants game for a few minutes) was the MSU/Minnesota women's volleyball game on ESPN 2. Women's volleyball is rarely televised, so this was a treat. The other treat was #17 on MSU's squad: Vanessa King, a 6 foot junior, flying around and taking out Minnesota's attack. I'm not sure I've ever seen a 6 foot redheaded lady before.

One channel up from ESPN 2, Comcast countered football with darts. If you've never seen darts before, you're not missing much. It made my rotation however, because of the announcer; not the two guys doing darts commentary (how far have you fallen when you have to give play-by-play for darts), but the guy at the actual venue, screaming the results to the crowds (yes crowds) on hand to witness two guys that make bowlers look cool throw pointy sticks at cork. The traditional darts' announcer (it's true, I've watched darts before) like an extra from a Guy Ritchie movie who enjoys gargling glass. It's really quite uncanny. I know it's difficult to truly hear it from this video, but it's worth it.



(Unrelated - do you see that crowd. Sure, "honey, I'm going out to watch Darts," is a great excuse to tell your wife to go out and booze up, but still.

The top of the hour rolled around by this point, giving me a whole slew of new shows to flip through, including the movie Pitch Black (not going there too much) a dog show (2 hours?) and an episode of Family Feud (can we collectively vote to destroy all versions of the Karn-hosted Feud? Thanks.) I also thought I got lucky hitting AMC and seeing the In-Laws was on, but quickly realized it wasn't the classic with Arkin and Falk, but the remake with Brooks and Douglas. See the Karn sentiments to see what I think about this travesty.

It wasn't all bad though. Sci-fi gave me Sasquatch Mountain, a tour de force starring a bunch of people who more than likely have starred in sci-fi original movies and Lance Henriksen. Who doesn't love Sasquatch? Here's the trailer. I have no idea why they chose to shoot this entire movie with a blue gel on the camera, but I went with it (at least the first 6 minutes)...



And here's, quite unbelievably, a panel at the Los Angeles Comic Convention, discussing the movie, Sasquatch Mountain (aka Devil on the Mountain):



I can't sit through more than 45 seconds of this (I really just feel embarrassed for everyone involved) but honestly, why introduce your biggest star (Lance Henricksen - also the guy everyone at the convention is there to see) first? Save the big reaction for the end, right? It's also shocking that this is part 1 of 3! I can't do it. I want to. I really do want to watch all 3 parts, I just know I can't.

Luckily, I didn't have to watch the blue-tinted Bigfoot very much, since I next stumbled upon the return of the greatest sport involving trampolines and attitude.

I'm of course talking about Slamball.

Rather than stupidly attempt to explain the awesomeness that is Slamball, I instead give you this:



To top it all off, we got a playoff game, announced by none other than Gus Johnson and Tom Tolbert. So excited by this duo, I immediately scrounged the web in hopes of finding any footage with these two announcing - and I came up with this. I did enjoy (while not 100% understanding) Tolbert's exclamation of, "Give that man a steak dinner!" Thankfully, that is on the video.

Regardless of the awfulness of these choices, it still gave me plenty of fodder to pass the time. What's worse is that I don't feel I wasted my time whatsoever. And that's the problem - when I can be entertained by this stuff, there's no hope for me being productive in life whatsoever.