THE GURGLING COD

Les Miles <3 Steak

Busy day. Did Sifton say anything interesting? Meanwhile, this meme I find endlessly amusing, which may suggest my limitations as a person blogger cod:

Ski Snack

  A busy weekend, yes, and a return to posts with something only marginally within the usual purview of the Cod. The quadrennial Winter Olympics coincide with the annual SI swimsuit issue. Now, ever since Al Gore invented the Internet, (and Sen. Sam Nunn invented Maxim) the market share of the swimsuit issue in America's libidinal economy has been in a nosedive. In an effort to grasp at relevance, the SI folk have expanded the offerings from the Tiegses and Brinkleys of yore to include athletes and their spouses, body paint, etc. etc. This goaround, there are pics of various female US Olympians in various cheesecakey poses, not to mention a simply cheesy shot on the cover of the Olympic preview issue. Reactions have ranged all the way from angry to meh to get over it, and I mention the whole thing only to share, thanks to the aforementioned Awl post, the awesomeness of earlier SI ski fashion -- there's Jean-Claude Killy, rocking two orange sweaters at once, and if you clicked through you are probably pregnant now. But, better still, Amy Baird (no idea) at right, sporting ski fashion, circa '57, and on the cover of SI, eating an actual sandwich! This was fifty years ago, yeah, but click back over here the next time you want to tell one of Anna Wintour's dead-eyed skeletors to go eat a sandwich, and it just might make you feel better.

Thank you.

Dear Sports:

 

Thank you!

xo, The Gurgling Cod

An open letter to sports

Dear Sports:

 I have on more than one occasion, consoled myself with one disappointment or the other involving the teams I root for (the four Boston professional teams, and my employer for college sports) by remembering that A) The New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl the day after our wedding, forestalling a Kill Bill redux w/ the cinetrix v. the New England Patriots, and B) The Boston Red Sox won a World Series in my father's lifetime.  Dayenu, as they say.

I wanted those things to happen very badly, and both of them did, and I declared I could not really ask for more from sports in my lifetime. However, if I could ask for just one more thing, it would be really great if you could see your way clear to having things go the Saints' way this evening, I would be much obliged. I don't think a single game has ever meant more to a city than this one to New Orleans. And there  My friend Jason Fry does a beautiful job of what a win would mean, and what it would not mean, but suffice it to say that it would make a lot of people very happy. And its a city that has done a lot for the happiness of many people who don't even live there. And the people who live there have had occasion, and continue to have occasion, to be sad. If the Colts lose, their fans can console themselves with highlights of a recent Super Bowl and, um, Applebees?

But I digress. The denizens of a city that has done so much to promote happiness for so many deserve the moment of joy that seeing 0:00 on the scoreboard in Miami with a bigger number next to the fleur-de-lis than next to the horseshoe. It's possible that there is no external force that controls these things, but it's no fun to think that way-- sports, we watch you for the unexpected, and you have an opportunity to make lots of people -- The Cod, the gentleman pictured at right, the good people of New Orleans, wherever they are -- very happy. Think it over, and see what you can do to make the ball bounce the Black and Gold's way.

Yours,

The Gurgling Cod

Jambalaya for President

Trying to keep the plates spinning both in this pixelated playground, and in real life, where getting out of bed in the morning has been a struggle lately. Luckily, The Starter Wife has your Super Bowl menu questions sewed up like Dr. Frankenstein. Vote Jambalaya, and Geaux Saints!

In other news, the Cod's terrestrial counterpart will be part of a football food promo at the conveniently located GSP Whole Foods. I'll be giving away samples of Rick's Picks. Mention the Cod, and receive your option of an awkward hug from my assistant, or a chance to try a new RP variety, not yet in stores.

Doing my "a real rain" dance

Two items from one day's worth of FNJ have me thinking it's time for someone just to go ham on Western civilization:

1) The Toronto Star reports that Mildred's Temple Kitchen, a Toronto restaurant, is offering a unique Valentine's promotion this year that goes so far as to sideline the food and get right down to the sex: a suggested interlude in the restaurant's "sexy bathrooms." "Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom?" goes the come on.

2) DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- A new Delray Beach business may have a heart defibrillator, dialysis machine and CPR classes, but it's not a hospital or a clinic. It's a sports grill.

The bedpan full of cheese chest pain fries is just one of several medical-themed dishes on the menu at Heart Stoppers Sports Grill.Anyone who weighs 350 pounds or more gets a free meal.

The Cod had recently wondered why heart attacks were so much funnier than cancer, but this is really pushing it. Oh, and the "waitresses dress like sexy nurses" alleges the caption. "Sexy nurse," in this case, evidently being some sort of local slang for "the watiresesses dress like bedraggled runaways forced to wear crummy nurse costumes." 

If there is someone in a cave in Pakistan Afghanistan working on a giant robot Travis Bickle armed w/ Sidewinder missiles, just tell me how I can help.

Who dat, who dat who dat say they gonna keep their upscale grocery store open during the Super Bowl?

This Super Bowl season has already produced more excitement than many -- a bet involving the loan of valuable art, w/ attendant curator smack talk, is a definite step up from the usual mayoral wagers of corndogs vs. crabcakes, or whatever. And now the contest spills into a whole new valence. Thanks to loyal reader Cookie, the Cod has learned that the Whole Foods in New Orleans* will close at 6 on Sunday, so that patrons and employees can focus. A call to the Whole Foods in Indianapolis** indicated that they will be open their regular hours. As an indicator of who wants it more, let the Football Gods take note.***

*True Cod enthusiasts will note that this Whole Foods is an adaptive reuse of the former Arabella bus barn. Cod zealots will recall an exhilarating, if ill-advised trip through this structure in a vehicle piloted by another Cod regular quite late one evening in 1992. 

**I would encourage Indy-area Colt fans to flood the WF message boards with questions about this lack of respect for Peyton & co. 

***The Cod cannot recall having more invested in the outcome of a sporting event not involving one of his biological teams. Geaux.