Greetings from Atlanta!  Well, here it is - my first entry on U.S. soil.  It's all a little overwhelming.  Is it acceptable for a grown man to weep tears of joy at the prospect of multiple trips to Chick-fil-A?  Excuse me for a moment while I regain my composure by sipping on this thirty-plus ounce glass of ice-cold, purified water that was just freshly dispensed from the 25.4 cubic foot stainless-steel refrigerator to my right.  That’s better.  You know, sitting on my fully-reclined La-z-boy as SportsCenter plays on the fifty-inch LCD television in the background, I think it's safe to say that for the first time in my life I truly understand the meaning of Thanksgiving.  Who says you can never go home again?  I think I may have already "accidentally" misplaced my passport for our trip back. 


In the spirit of Thanksgiving, here's a brief list of some of the things I'm thankful for, and a few that I'm not so thankful for:

1)  I'm thankful for the woman in the airport on Sunday that I overheard telling the customs official (whose "food-sniffing" dog had been lathered into a frenzy) that she had a minced-meat pie in her luggage that she had brought with her from England.  Despite the roughly two thousand warnings regarding the restrictions on international transport of food, she actually looked perplexed at the notion that bringing her pie into the States would be an issue.  Without people like her, I'd have nothing to write about.

2)  I'm thankful that both England and the U.S. have adopted the slogan "Movember" for the month of November, in honor of the greatest of all of the facial hair variations - the mustache.  The month of November has been coined "Movember" to raise awareness of and funding for men's health issues, such as prostate cancer.  Here's a link to the website:  http://www.movember.com/   In short, you go out and raise funds by getting people to sponsor you for growing some kind of 'stache during the month of November.  The growing of the 'staches began November 1st.  A free pass to grow a sweet 'stache for Thanksgiving, all in the name of charity?  You can't beat that.  I canceled my plans to grow one because I thought Movember was only going on in England and I knew I'd be back in the U.S. for the last two weeks of Movember and therefore unable to check in for the official growth check on November 30th.  I just recently discovered the international reach of Movember, making it too late for me this year.  But now that I know Movember is global, all I can say is: watch out for next year.  I hear the ladies love a salt and pepper 'stache. 

I had to follow up last week's pic of Tom Brady with a little more for the ladies.  How's this?

Something else I'm thankful for?  That I don't know the guy in the above picture.  The mustache is almost enough to distract you from the shorts. 

While I'm on the subject of 'staches, are you familiar with the fine work that the American Mustache Institute ("AMI") is doing?  They are currently conducting a poll to determine who should be on Mount 'Stachemore.  Here's the link:  http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/Default.aspx

Ok - back to what I'm thankful for, which includes the ability to be amused by mustaches.

3)  I am thankful for Tim Tebow.  Without Tim Tebow, the world would be a darker place, and the Gators would have at least six losses (which is why the world would be a darker place).  Mr. Tebow just became the first player in Division I football history to rush for over twenty touchdowns and throw for over twenty touchdowns in one season.  Think about that for a minute.  It's not like Division I football just got up and running a few years ago.  It's been around a while.  And no one in its history has ever done that.  Oh yeah - he also broke the single-season SEC record for rushing touchdowns, which might be even more impressive.  Here's a few names: Herschel Walker, Emmitt Smith and Bo Jackson.  None rushed for twenty touchdowns in one season, and one of those guys is the NFL's all-time leading rusher.  Did you know that when it rains in the Swamp, Tim Tebow doesn't get wet?  The rain gets Tim Tebow'd.  Did you know if you Google "Tim Tebow getting his ass kicked" you will generate zero results?  Tim Tebow doesn't get his ass kicked.  Did you know that Tim Tebow once got blackjack with one card?  Did you know that Tim Tebow once ate a whole cake before his friends could tell him there was a stripper in it? 
Ok - I'm done.

4)  I am not thankful that it is looking more and more like I will have to watch Tennessee, a team that the Gators beat 59 - 20, play LSU in the SEC Championship.  Sorry Vol fans, but that game qualifies as an absolute stinker.  I think some Vol fans are secretly hoping they lose to Kentucky so a) they can spare the embarrassment of getting pummeled by LSU and b) Big Phil Fulmer will get canned.  Speaking of Phil, I've heard he has a new sponsorship deal:

Here he is after one of the players took one without asking:

Just think what he could do to a turkey!

5)  I am thankful for Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban, whose very presence in the SEC means that Steve Spurrier isn't the most hated coach in the conference any more.  And the best part is that he keeps providing new amunition.  Saban, who left the Miami Dolphins for the college ranks so he could allegedly get back to molding and educating young men, has been deep into preparations for Alabama's game against Auburn this weekend.  After Alabama's stunning 21-14 loss to Louisiana-Monroe last weekend, Nick apparently decided he needed to go deep into his motivational bag of tricks to get his team fired up for their most hated rival.  So what did he do?  He told his team that, just like Americans did after the 9-11 terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor, his team must also rebound from a "catastrophic event."  Good one, Nick.  His explanation of the tactic was even better:

"Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event," Saban said during the opening remarks of his weekly news conference. "It may be 9-11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event." 

I particularly like his use of the term "or whatever" in reference to Pearl Harbor.  When your head coach is competing with John Belushi in "Animal House" ("Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"), you've got problems.  Keep on educating, my man.

6)  I am thankful that the Bowl Championship Series ("BCS") is well on its way to proving itself to be a complete joke once again.  Which one-loss or two-loss teams deserve to play in the "championship" game and why?  Who cares!   Nobody knows, and nobody will until they have a playoff system that will settle it on the field.  Until then, we will have the same idiots who had pre-ordained USC as the greatest team in the history of college football before the season even started voting on who deserves to play in a "championship" game.  Thanks fellas, but I'm just not too sure how confident I am in your ability to accurately assess who the best two teams in the country are.  Until we've got a playoff, I'll enjoy the "national championship" game just like I do all the other bowls, but don't try to tell me the winner is the champion of anything as long as you guys are deciding who plays in the game.

Here's a scary thought: last night, while contemplating the fraud that is the BCS, I tried to think of which other sports are most similar to college football in the way that they determine their champion.  You know what I came up with?  Boxing and Ice Skating.  I sat there and tried to think of other sports that had as arbitrary and absurd a system for picking their winner as Division I college football, and I landed on boxing and ice skating.  That's scary.

7)  I am thankful for the New England Patriots, who put a serious a*s-whooping on the Bills (56 - 10) and made The SportDork look like a genius by taking them in my NFL Pick Of The Week!!  I told you the Pats brought pleasure to the world of sports gambling.  Did you feel it?  I know I did.

8)  I am not thankful that Vegas has apparently wised up to the sure thing that is the Patriots and has thus installed them as twenty-one point favorites over the Philadelphia Eagles this weekend at Foxboro.  That's a lot of points.  A lot.  But not enough!!!  The Pats are handing out free money for betting on them, like an ATM that spits out a few hundred bucks and never debits your account.  It's time to jump all over Tom Brady once again!! (That one was for the ladies.)  The SportDork's NFL Pick Of The Week is New England - 21 vs. Philadelphia!!!

9)  Finally, I am thankful for the new SportDork writing chair!!  I finally found someone to sponsor funding of the chair, and it turns out that she lives with me.  Thanks to Mrs. SportDork, I am now penning entries from the comfort of a fine, genuine-leather executive desk chair, and I may not need hemorrhoid-removal surgery after all.  Below is a picture of the new chair.  (That's Mrs. SportDork in the background.  She's making sure the bolts are tight enough to support me.)

Makes the desk look like a real piece of shit, doesn't it?  I have the same feeling in the pit of my stomach as I did after we remodeled the first room in our old house.

Finally, I think we got out of England just in time.  I could be wrong, but I think they may be on the verge of a crack epidemic.

 
Who's ready for some turkey? 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!