• Always nice to see Ricky Foggie get another win for the Argos (and for the record I still call the Ballad of Ricky Foggie for a CFL fantasy team). Foggie of course was the impetus for the Argos brain trust to take a look at James Robinson, and yes there's no way before the game that I would have guessed that the heroes would include James Robinson and Tyler Scott.  Tyler Freakin' Scott!
• If we had our way, every halftime show would be mascot football. Another good outing this year, even if the Raptor strikes us as the Ben Johnson of the group. There's a good chance that 10 years from now that he'll be promoting  some hair replacement system for the 2030 version of D'Angelo. Anyway, it's unfortunate that the Coffee Time Coffee Mug was unavailable this year. Scouts have called the potential to lob the ball up into the mug "enticing".
• It was a great idea by the Argos to have the players run out on to the field with their kids. It was a better idea to wait for Andre Rison to be off the team before doing this.
  

It's not the delightful pep band...it's the return of our semi-regular roundup of a few things that don't quite merit full entries. Confusing matters is that this edition actually does include a reference to the aforementioned pep band.

• Among the happiest developments this season has been the team's long overdue inclusion of our friends in the Argonotes in the official game presentation. Now perched on a platform in the end zone, these are clearly high-flying times for our man Steve Hayman and the gang. We have absolutely nothing bad to say about this, so we'll just point out that their version of Ain't Seem Nothing Yet is infinitely better than the original BTO version. Also, at the risk of offending the invariably gracious Argonotes, we'd like to politely request that Saskatchewan's pep band not be afforded similar status when the 'Riders are in town.
  
  
• Among the unhappiest developments this season? The inexplicable disappearance of the Argos' celebration car. Having taken a ride in it ourselves (okay, we sat stationary in it at Grey Cup '04 and drank beer), its absence is second only to the axing of the cheese race (more on that soon, again) on our list of grievances.
  
  
• We've been itching for quite a while to point out the appalling spectacle that is Gabriel Morency, the "Hardcore Sports Radio" host who periodically turns up on The Score. Since he usually talks about basketball, this would have exceeded our mandate and thus confused and possibly frightened our readers. But since he's now giving his weekly CFL picks, it's time.
  
  Catching his act on a local bar's big-screen before the last home game, a friend pointed out (folllowing the inevitable "this is the worst thing I've ever seen") that Morency appears to be The Score's answer to Poochie - the cartoon dog with "attitude" brought in to make the Itchy and Scratchy Show more edgy. As you can see, he does indeed bear considerable resemblance. But truth is, this guy's not even Poochie...he's Roy, the even lamer human version of Poochie who appears in the same episode.
  
  
• Let the record show that Jude St. John has killed a lot of birds. 

A few random notes in honour of, um, it being Wednesday...

• Over the last number of years we've read countless complaints - usually made by fans (some of whom are also journalists) of teams from the West Division - that the league or the media are giving teams from the East preferential treatment.  We're not here to debate whether or not that's correct (note: it's not), but we would like to offer a compromise:  Next year, we'll give you guys the "advantage" if you'll allow us to enter the shamefully exclusive Safeway Touchdown to Win.  Deal?

• Bravo to the Argos for running a story on their official site that basically could have been boiled down to 7 words:  Nick Lachey wants to "romance" Argos' Cheerleaders. 
  

• We'll no doubt have more to say on this as the season goes on, but kudos to TSN and the CFL for the Top 50 Players program.  It looks like they've put together a great list of 185 candidates.  That being said, we were a little hurt that Boatmen Blog wasn't approached to be a judge for this event.  Our invite must have gotten lost in the mail.  That's okay, though -   some of the best and brightest writers and broadcasters aren't on the list either, so it must have been difficult to make the ch....  Wait a minute. Steve Simmons is on this panel?  The guy who wrote an article before the 2004 Grey Cup saying that it would be better for the Argos if they lost the game?  That guy?....  You're dead to us, TSN.

• In case you're wondering, our vote would (obviously) go to Pinball.... We'll let you have the other 184, who we all know Pinball could beat playing by himself, even if he was injected with a flu virus by Wally Buono, shrunken by Don Matthews or forced to listen to Frank D'Angelo music the entire game.
  

Real life has gotten in the way slightly the past week, which is why we've been offering fewer ruminations that usual. To make up for lost time, it seems reasonably to revive Argo Notes. No, not the delightful pep band, which remains alive and well - just a roundup of a few things that don't quite merit full items, in this case extending beyond Argoland and into the broader CFL:

•  It always seems weird to describe CFL players as overrated, considering we're talking about a league where players work in big-box stores in the off-season. But as good a quarterback as he is, Dave Dickenson might be getting there - as evidenced by this TSN feature, which puts him atop a list of Most Offensive Player candidates. "Say what you want about Buck Pierce," TSN tells us, "but the Lions' offence kicks into another gear when Dickenson is behind centre." We see their point - Pierce's QB rating of 111.7 is embarrassingly low next to Dickenson's 112.5. So low, in fact, that it completely negates the fact that his completion rate is 5% higher, and that he's actually capable of finishing a game once or twice a season.

• Speaking of TSN, we spent a quiet Saturday night last weekend watching the double-header - Ticats/Eskimos on TSN, and Als/Lions on CBC. Incidentally, the brief overlap between the two was the first time we can remember ever flipping between two CFL games. But that's not the point. The point is this: How is it possible that Khari Jones, who as far as we know had never worked as a colour commentator before doing the late gane, was already more professional than Leif Peterson, who does it as a career?
  

• According to Ed Hervey, "There's a difference between playing football in the CFL and playing Eskimo football." We'd suggest the difference this year is that everyone else plays 60 minute games and the Eskimos only show up for the first 59, but according to Hervey it's that "Eskimo football is everyone sticking together" and "check(ing)  your ego at the door," whereas  everyone else is "playing for the money...playing for the bonuses...playing for the glamour."  Now, it's pretty well-established that we love the CFL to something approaching an unhealthy degree. But if you're playing in this league for the money or the glamour, you've got some serious problems.

• We're not style experts, by any stretch. But we're pretty sure this is officially the weirdest fashion campaign out there. Pinball Clemons, Ted Danson, and Malcolm Gladwell? For the uninitiated, Malcolm Gladwell is this guy. If we can find a way to work him into this week's bonus question, we'll truly have achieved perfection.

• We've avoided trying to get clever about the Miss Argo contest, because they all seem like nice girls (even if they haven't quite brought it like the exemplary Blue Lightning.) But we're highly intrigued by Shannon K's explanation that "to be on a professional cheerleading team with a football organization of this calibre still shocks me every day after working with minor football leagues for many years." Cheerleaders work their way up through the minors before hitting the big time? We had no idea. And do cheerleading farm teams follow the usual pattern, with a few promising rookies and a bunch of journey (wo)men on the downswings of their careers, drinking a little too heavily and quietly resenting their younger teammates as they stretch out their careers for as long as possible? Because we had kind of assumed those cheerleaders just went to Hamilton. 

No, not the delightful pep band ... at least not yet. Just our weekly roundup of a few things that don't quite merit full items.

• Earlier this week, we made note – in considerable detail – of Spergon Wynn’s surprising status as a chick magnet. But there’s one detail we left out, possibly because he was shielded by so many ladies that we failed to notice. Not only is Spergon a backup quarterback with an 0-3 record as a starter…he’s a backup quarterback with an 0-3 record as a starter who now wears braces. Clearly, we’re all in the wrong profession.
  

• Hot damn… JDubbs is back. And he has unkind things to say about You, Me and Dupree. Honestly, these reviews are probably better written than the stuff they run in the Sun. And those reviews don’t come with random plugs for early ’90s Richard Gere movies at the end.

• Speaking of good finds on the Argos’ website, there’s some exemplary work by play-by-play guy Jaime Stein on the Argos’ eating habits. We particularly enjoy Jeff Johnson’s slightly deranged take on his breakfast habits, even if his strong stance on pitas (“No pitas or anything; the fiancé always wants pitas. Nope!”) appears to be compromised by his description moments later of how he eats his pitas.
  

• It’s reassuring that no matter how messy things get with CFL teams – heck, if the Gliebermans come back a dozen more times – they will never, ever be as monumentally screwed up as the New York Islanders.
  

• Not to get all sentimental here, but a big thanks to everyone who’s checked us out the first couple of weeks…including, apparently, Ticats’ owner Bob Young, who has a decent sense of humour for a guy from Hamilton. It’s gratifying to see more and more visitors sharing our joy over Adam Rita’s board game ruminations and our horror over Frank D’Angelo. And it’s equally gratifying to know that we’re not the only ones with too much time on our hands.
  
  

No, not the delightful pep band ... at least not yet. Just a roundup of a few things that don't quite merit full items. With no Thursday night games this year to leave us borderline unconscious Friday mornings, this might even become a regular late-week staple.

• By the standards of official teams' sites, argonauts.ca is actually pretty great. Adding Peewee Smith and giving him free reign to criticize the team was a particularly nice move, even if they inexplicably failed to name the feature "Peewee's Playhouse." But their most impressive brainwave has to be finding a way to keep their fourth-string running back occupied. Admittedly, they don't seem to really want anyone else to know about it: This thing was never publicized beforehand, and they seem to have invented an alter ego to protect John Williams' anonynimity. But ladies and gentlemen...meet "JDubbs"!
  

• Despite heavy temptation, there will be no daily rants here about Kent Austin's offence. Boatmenblog is all about the love, plus we'd kind of like to avoid pissing off the Argos before they feel guilty about how much time we're spending on this and give us some swag. ("Is that a Wayne Lammle bobblehead? Let's send it to those Boatmenblog idiots...") But if anything should give Austin some concerns about long-term job security, could it be Greg Marshall joining the ranks of the unemployed? Offensive specialist...still held in high regard in Canadian football circles...and apparently has no desire to vacate southern Ontario, which leaves only one remaining professional team that could employ him. Just saying.

• The only topic more boring than coach-slagging is endless ruminations over attendance. So let's just say this once. Whatever his other shortcomings so far (most of which have to do with the O-line, but that's a different post), Ricky Williams is not hurting the Argos at the gate - however convenient it may be to slide that into every column outlining the team's early-season woes. Last year, attendance for their second game was 26,218. This year, it was almost identical at 26,304. And that was with the World Cup, the Grand Prix,  all those street festivals clogging traffic, and a 1-2 record coming in.
  

• It's Friday night, it's summer, the city will be buzzing with places to go and things to do...so naturally, we're going to sit on a couch for three hours to watch Hamilton play Calgary. But wait...here's where things get really crazy. Instead of keeping this experience to ourselves, we're going to share it with you. That's right...Boatmenblog goes live, or at least as live as we're gonna be after several beers and several hours of watching steam shoot out of Ron Lancaster's ears. Look for our thrilling blow-by-blow sometime late tonight. Boatmenblog: Watching the Ticats so you don't have to.