And now let us turn to page 8 in the hymnal and sing our praises to our Lord and Savior, Tommy Maddox.

It's weeks like this that make Pittsburgh sports radio just so dang interesting to listen to, and then shut off. We're destined for an entire week of "Tommy Maddox should be the starter" intensified to the Nth degree (not that we weren't already there now.) Personally, I'm thankful for only one thing in this entire affair, that Phil Dawson got blocked in overtime. Otherwise I'd be able to cause the more psychotic of the Steeler faithful to suicide:

Random psychofan. "Tommy Maddox! Tommy Maddox! He healed my lameness. It's a miracle."
Me: "What about his interception? Didn't that cost us the game?"
RP: "Um. Um.." grabs IC light bottle, smashes it over the bar, and stabs himself in the jugular. with the broken shards.

I'm sure it's common in all cities to have the "backup quarterback as cruelly tortured holy figure", (anyone know if Joseph Campbell ever explored this?) but it's especially acute in Pittsburgh, and I can't remember a year when it didn't come into play. (I'm frantically trying to think of a year when Bradshaw didn't have someone calling for his head, but I'm failing)

At this point the QB situation is a nice problem number 4 on the radar, after the defense (which really wasn't tested against a full spread air attack as in previous weeks) the offensive line and the running game(which admittedly, if we have nothing coming from Bettis, et. al. , we might as well put in Maddox, and then put Kordell in at RB.)

Still, could be worse. We could be looking at Unfrozen Caveman Ball Coach's lot, or Mr. "I AM AN OFFENSIVE GENIUS!!!!!"'s situation

Random product placement of the week: Just before the game, we had just gotten an order of buffalo style chicken strips, which were very much on the Buffalo side, and I put them down on an empty stomach. As I tend to bellyache about my bellyaches, I made some comment about it feeling like someone was using a Dremel tool on my stomach, prompting Joe to respond "Maybe you could go for a refreshing Mike's Hard Lemonade." Maybe you had to be there, but that stopped me cold.

Meanwhile, the Pirates closed out the year in the most embarrassing way possible: Cracking open champagne in the locker room because they didn't lose 90 games. Dissing the Scouts, and cancelling Fan Appreciation Night. While I will freely admit that what they didn't have control of, they can't be blamed for, you have to look at this as the perfect trifecta microcosm of the season. Bad breaks, bad times, and bad attitude. And the only celebration they can muster honors the fact that they suck incompletely. Wow.

Day 11.
11A. American Musical Theatre History
11B. Worldwide Holiday and Festival Site
11C. Lephalophodon
11D. IUPAC Glossary of Chemical Class Names
11E. Fodors (specifically the mini guides)