We learned a long time ago that pre-season football is inherently terrible, and so we were going to wait for the regular season before gracing you with our presence once more. But then we stumbled onto this nugget about Anthony Calvillo stand-in Adrian McPherson in Wednesday night's game report:

McPherson made headlines in 2006 when he filed a lawsuit after being injured an in NFL exhibition game. He was run over by a golf cart driven by the Tennessee Titans's raccoon mascot and sued the NFL team for US$20 million in damages.

See, there are some things we're prepared to accept. $10 beers, for instance. Or air inside the Rogers Centre that's so damp, it's almost squishy. Or long snappers who cannot, in fact, actually snap the ball a long distance. But one thing that is absolutely unacceptable is losing to a team being led by a dude whose claim to fame is being run over by a human-sized raccoon driving a golf cart.

No mascot inside the former SkyDome has done anything particularly useful (outside of mascot football, obviously) since that time back in the '90s when the giant Talk 640 dog was knocked unconscious by a drunk, but refused to take his his dog-head off while being escorted from the field because he didn't want to "scare the children." (We're not making this up.) But if Jason were worth anything at all, then McPherson wouldn't have made it out of the first quarter without being run over by a...well, by some sort of fake Greek boat, or whatever it is that Jason would drive.

We really hate to encourage vigilante justice in our first post in seven months, and promise to be more constructive next time (which will be considerably less than seven months from now). But honestly, some things are just beyond the pale.

Big ups to Montreal – the kids still say “big ups,” right? - for setting up a Grey Cup village that provides a rather diverse drinking experience.

At the heart of this temporary community is a bar that looks like something the Euro-party set might stumble into if they took a very wrong turn in Ibiza. It’s a giant inflatable sphere, with silhouetted images of cheerleaders being projected onto the enormous tented walls. Inside, there are white couches, a DJ spinning dance tunes, and girls who may or may not be paid to be there dancing by themselves and being more friendly than you’d expect when you’ve been wearing the same jerseys for three days. Around the time we saw a dude giving a girl a lap dance, we decided to see what was next door.

Unfortunately, what was next door – in the largest of the village’s venues – was a U2 cover band named Elevation. Admittedly, our expectations for cover bands remain sky-high because of the transcendent experience that was Free Ride, the Rolling Stones imitators who rocked Grey Cup ’06 with two Keith Richards and nary a Ron Wood in sight. But Elevation just took themselves way too seriously. Honestly, when you’re in a cover band, you really don’t need to have entrance music from another band you’re not in. But for the record, we did enjoy the Bono impersonator describing the guy pretending to be The Edge as “the one, the only, The Edge.”

In the final pavilion – “The Bistro” – we finally found what we were looking for. No, not Free Ride – something called Wang Dang Doodle, a cover band that’s actually more of a jam band, complete with a saxophonist, a bassist who looked sort of like a shorter and more robust version of Geddy Lee, and an imposingly bald singer/guitarist who seemed to spend large chunks of the set serenading us with endless solos that we don’t remember being in the original version of Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl.

We know that this sounds awful. But while it’s conceivable we were just swayed by their ridiculous name, we happened to find Wang Dang Doodle many shades of awesome. By the time they closed with some AC/DC, prompting tens upon tens of Montrealers to spastically gyrate like life-sized bobbleheads, Elevation had been left thoroughly in the dust.

Sadly, it appears they’ve not experienced the level of celebrity they deserve. At show’s end, following an encore slightly delayed because the bassist had disappeared into the can, the saxophonist was seen exiting the Bistro by himself. Honestly, we’d have thought there’d be a lineup of eager young ladies waiting to Wang Dang his Doodle.

Most of yesterday was spent driving to Montreal in a crappy rental car, so not a lot of interesting activity to report. Given the lack of anything interesting to look at on the drive - with the notable exceptions of the Big Apple and the Hell Holes Provincial Park - we thought we’d start off the weekend with our burning questions:

- Will any Als fans show up to the events outside of the Grey Cup village? Number of Als jerseys seen during our four hours at the Spirit of Edmonton room last night...three

- Suzy (or is it Susie, or maybe Suzie... screw it, we’ll go with this spelling) McNeill is playing the half time show on Sunday, but don’t worry if you miss her at the game. Next week she’ll be playing in the area under the food court at First Canadian Place in Toronto. So does that mean we got a sub-par halftime act or is the allure of Taco Bell and crappy Chinese food much stronger than we thought?

- We’ve written pretty extensively over the years about how ridiculous the crowds in the Big O are, and to reiterate we think that the fans that show up to Molson are great. But for some reason the bigger crowd doesn’t cut the mustard. During last week’s playoff game with Edmonton, it sounded very quiet in the Dome when Ricky Ray had the ball - except when the “fait du bruit” instruction played, and then the place went nuts. So given that this is supposed to be a neutral site game, if you’re working the PA system do you play the “fait du bruit” chant when both teams have the ball - which could potentially lead to an epic Calvillo/Chiu freak-out - or do you choose to play it like the Als aren’t involved at all, and accept that most of the crowd will spend the entire game in stony silence?

Off to Touchdown Manitoba...

Anyone else excited for this season? Looks like the Argos are rounding nicely into form. New quarterback...new coach..

Wait, what? 4-14? Seriously? Looks like we picked the right season to sleep through.

Indeed, it's been something of a lost year all around. But here's the good news. Tomorrow morning, we head to Montreal for four days of the usual fun. If you know us personally, brace yourself for drunken text messaging. And if you don't? Well, that's where the drunken blogging comes in.

No longer dormant, we shall erupt like a volcano - or like Adriano Belli five seconds after the whistle has blown. Consider yourselves forewarned.

Don Matthews?  Didn't see that coming.  Finally something tops the Don King apperance in the TSN booth for "oddest moment of the year". The fact that the whole Argo section at the Labour Day game didn't boo and heckle Mel Lastman for doing a commercial in a Ticats jersey ranks a distant third. 

Of course all of this news (the Taafe firing, the Canada-Moreno trade) comes during a week where I basically am screwed for time, so more in the coming days.  As an initial reaction though, presuming that Don doesn't do the "Weekend at Bernie's" act that he had going on the sidelines for the last year in Montreal (hopefully the medication helps with that) it should work out well.  The alternative is to hire Jonathan Silverman to help prop him up during games.  I hear that he's available.

Calgary at Edmonton
Maybe the first sign that Dave Dickenson wasn’t going to be OK was when he fumbled in a non-contact mini football game while being chased by a middle-aged man during last year’s Grey Cup festivities. If we actually made anything from this blog, we’d finally be able to write off the beers consumed while we were watching that touch football game.  It was research, see.

As an aside, what number do you suppose Ben Sankey is on the Stamps speed dial?

Pick: Edmonton

BC at Hamilton
Well that was certainly a busy week for the Leos. We’ll deal with the Roberts trade a little bit later, but they may have only been the second biggest piece of news from BC this week what with the training camp fight between Geroy Simon and Tyrone Williams. Presumably the scuffle was a result of the un-Lions like 4-5 start to the year, but honestly that has us a little perplexed. At this stage, if you were a Western club wouldn’t you much prefer to get the cross-over and try and go through the East?

On the Ticats side… well at least it was a close Labour Day game this year. How close?  Well let’s see a yard is about half of the length of a horse, so they did quite well if you had the place bet.

Pick: BC

Toronto at Montreal
With the signing of P.K. Sam it’s becoming plain to see that the Argos are trying to recreate the 2004 New England Patriots. We’re betting that J.J. Stokes who “hasn’t officially retired” but last played in 2004 is the next to be signed.  He’s available.  Very available.

Of course, we’ll be perfectly happy with this strategy if it leads to a disoriented Ricky Ray vomiting on the field in the waning moments of the Grey Cup (and you’re welcome for getting the image of McNabb being sick all over the field in your head)

Pick: Toronto

Saskatchewan at Winnipeg
How many times does trading one underachieving star player for another actually work?  At the very least we can see why the Bombers did this. Joe Smith immediately vaults to the top of the depth chart and provides a RB that is similar to the guys used by Doug Berry in Montreal.

Who will actually win this trade? We have no idea. However, if we had to chose a financial advisor amongst the two, we’d definitely go with Joe Smith.  From Ed Tait:

 “Talk about cheap… He used to collect pop cans and bottles kicking around the Lions’ clubhouse and haul them down to a recycling depot for the $10 to $15 they would deliver. So cheap that he’d take his own popcorn bag to the movies and then head up to the concession stand for a free refill.”

Amazing what can happen when you're away in Vegas for a few days (cheers to the Stampeders for winning over the Lions and paying for the flight, jeers to the manish craps dealers for taking it all back). Hard to say what was more surprising, the Bishop trade, the Steinauer release or the Kevin Millar Hitler mustache look.  Check that, it was definitely Steinauer.

For the record, the Bishop trade now means that the deals with the Riders look like this:

To Sask:

- T.J. Acree, negotiation list player, 3rd round pick, Leron Mitchell, Glenn January, Michael Bishop, Steve Morley

To Toronto:

- Kerry Joseph, Jamal Robertson, Nathan Hoffart, 5th round pick, whatever they got for Bishop

All hail the hedgehog. 

Saskatchewan at Edmonton
It’s time to face it. If the ‘97 Argos couldn’t go undefeated, nobody is going undefeated.

Outside of the undefeated bid, obviously the biggest story in Riderville this season has been the somewhat absurd number of injuries the team has suffered. So we thought it‘d be interesting to see how some of them are spending their time off, namely backup QB Drew Tate. 

Now presumably this was taken during Halloween but here he is as one of the characters from Dodgeball.  Hopefully.

If he's smart his next costume won’t involve the Robert Downey Jr. character from another Ben Stiller movie.

Pick: Saskatchewan

Calgary at BC
The Calgary offence has been extremely efficient and impressive so far this year and should be one of the tougher units the Lions see this year. So how are they planning on stopping them? By confusing their own defense with new signals in the hopes that it’ll stifle backup QB Dave Dickenson. 

Whatever works I guess. 

In any case, in order to limit confused glances amongst the defense, we humbly submit that the Lions go back to the days of yore and simply use carrier pigeons to deliver messages to the field. (Somewhere Damon Allen is in a rocking chair nodding his head)

Pick: Calgary

Hamilton at Winnipeg

A huge game for both teams and possibly the biggest non-Labour Day game for Hamilton for a few years. The Bombers are going back to Kevin Glenn ending the great Ryan Dinwiddie Experience v. 2.0. Has there been a team in the past 5 years to have more quarterbacking issues than the Bombers?  Tee Martin… Jonathan Quinn… Brad Banks… we weren’t really going anywhere with those list of names, we just enjoying torturing Bombers fans.  Anyway, Bryan Randall is waiting patiently in the wings and let’s hope he gets his chance soon if only so that his google image search pulls up a photo of him as a professional that isn’t from the AAFL.

Pick: Winnipeg

Montreal at Toronto

Given last week’s performance and our attempts to stay positive we aren’t going to reference the Argos this week… except to wish Ross Weaver the best of luck.  On to the Als, how is it that Anthony Calvillo isn’t getting the full “Brett Favre” treatment at this point in his career? We mean the “this guy loves to play”, “he’s like a little kid out there”, “I’d like my wife to be impregnated by him” treatment. Not the “let’s make an absurdly big story out of this and follow him around incessantly” treatment. Although if that were to happen to a CFL personality, you’d think it’d be Tillman. Maybe Gainer. 

Pick: Toronto

Bonus Pick:
All of the Argos have been injured in practice leaving Pinball to play the Als by himself. Unfortunately, the Canadian Olympic team has also asked him to help end their drought and win some medals. How does Pinball do?

Boatmenblog Pick: Despite not being an actual Canadian, Pinball talks his way into letting the Olympics allow him to compete in for Canada. Not having all of the proper equipment, Pinball proceeds to win the epee fencing event wearing no protective gear and using a toy “He-Man sword”. He then proceeds to win the 110 meter hurdles by using his football skills and simply barrelling through them. Not wanting to embarrass the other athletes, Pinball returns to Canada and proceeds to beat the Als handily.  No rest for Pinball.  The final tally: Pinball 253 and 2 gold, Als 5

Things that you can buy for $575 that aren’t a single ticket to the NFL exhibition game:

- 176 pounds of copper
- 17 tickets to the Argos-Alouettes game
- half of the City of Detroit
- 43 copies of the Maestro’s Urban Landmark
- 27 copies of Matt Dunigan’s book on football
- 30 copies of Matt Dunigan’s book on cooking (honestly this shocked me, after his coaching career I would have assumed that his cook book would have been more expensive)
- Buy 575 copies of the newspaper.  Make 575 newspaper hats
- 35 haunted Coleman coolers
- 580 alien raisin heads
- 542 copies of the Sacramento Gold Miners media guide
- The rights to the Sacramento Gold Miners

Reasons we can think of for spending $575 to watch preseason football: