Monday Morning Grab Bag

There are few things in this world worse than waking up at 6am on Monday morning. Especially around this time of year, when it is still relatively pitch black out, and in the event of today, raining. I arose from my bed today and took out the trash (Monday is our

trash day). There is only one thing that can remedy a case of the Mondays, and it is finding out that you in fact do not have work that day. I was blessed with that revelation this morning.

Upon hearing the news, I was elated and made my way to my computer to watch the most recent episode of Eastbound and Down. After laughing for thirty minutes at the profanity of Kenny Powers and his midget sidekick, I returned to my bed for four more hours of sleep.

A long shower, a big plate of scrambled eggs and a tall glass of chocolate milk later, I sit here prepared to deliver my first MMGB. I will use this to cover any wide array of topics from the weekend, whether it be football, movies, personal experience, etc. So with that, let's kick it off.

NFL

A few surprises this week, as we saw the Kansas City Chiefs improve to 3-0, beating the San Francisco 49ers 31-10, proving that they are for real. We also saw much needed wins from the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings who were both previously 0-2. The only undefeated teams at this point are Pittsburgh(3-0), Kansas City(3-0), and the winner of tonight's Green Bay vs Chicago game.

As for our beloved Patriots, our defense finally showed its youth and inexperience. The Buffalo Bills were able to keep pace with the Pats by riding the arm of Ryan Fitzpatrick as well as a multi-faceted backfield of Marshawn Lynch, Fred Jackson and rookie CJ Spiller. It was good to see the Patriots walk away with a victory at the end of the day, but against a team like Buffalo I was expecting more. The Patriots are now tied with the Jets and Dolphins at 2-1 in the division, and will head to Miami next week to take on the Fins on Monday Night Football in a must win game in order to stay relevant in the AFC East.

AMC's MAD MEN

Last night's episode, titled Hands and Knees, raised some new interesting questions. If you have not yet watched the episode I recommend skipping the following paragraphs.

The episode starts out with Don calling Betty to tell Sally that he has gotten them Beatles tickets for the weekend. Betty seems surprised and at the same time impressed by Don. Later on, she is interviewed by men from the Government who say they have questions to ask about Don due to a security clearance he asked for. Betty complies. Following the matter, she calls Don to ask what the hell is going on, and Don is noticeably distraught over the situation. This is one of the few times we see Don Draper truly humbled. An overall sense of worry and fear comes over him, and he is thankful to Betty for her cooperation. It seems as if these two may actually begin to get along.

On the other side of the building, Joan informs Roger that their fun night of debauchery has resulted in some unwanted offspring. Sterling brings Joan to a doctor, who is disgusted by the whole matter, but takes care of the necessary surgery. Joan tells Sterling that she is sorry for what happened, and Sterling continues to push the fact that he is in love with Joan and thinks this is some sort of sign. It's interesting to see this story line finally actually brought into play. There has been a sexual tension between these two characters since the show has started. I guess the writers thought it more appropriate to wait until both characters were married before they began the affair.

Back to Draper's story, the news of the Government's involvement has Don shaken up, and he discovers his secretary filled out paperwork which he unknowingly signed, requesting some sort of security clearance from one of Campbell's clients. Don asks Pete to drop the account, but Campbell tells him it is worth $4mil, and that he found it and built it on his own. Draper talks down to Campbell as usual and basically orders that he cut ties with the account. This is a huge blow to Campbell, who is now an expecting father. Draper once again resorts to selfishness in the wake of an error due to his own negligence.

Towards the end of the episode we see Sterling at dinner with a client from Lucky Strike. It is here that Roger is informed that the two will no longer be working together. Sterling assumes its a joke and tries to laugh it off, only to be reassured that the account is in fact over.

Campbell assembles all the major partners of Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce to inform them of the loss of his $4mil account (blanking on the name). At the same time, Sterling keeps quiet about the news from Lucky Strike.

There is also a minor subplot in which Lane Pryce tries to introduce his African American girlfriend to his father, only to receive his father's disapproval and an eventual blow to the head from his father's cane. Lane tells the partners he will be returning to England for a month to tend to family issues.

A solid episode all in all. This show has done a good job of delivering consistent, quality episodes for almost four seasons now. The character development of Don Draper has been absolutely fascinating, better than many other shows I have seen, except for Walt White in Breaking Bad (amazing show, also on AMC). There are just three episodes left in this season of Mad Men, I am expecting a great conclusion.

Culinary

I want to begin talking about food on here in some respect. In the event I go out to eat and have a really good meal or if I find some great new recipe, I will try to put these up. I love food, as I'm sure many people do, so we'll see what I can contribute in this aspect. To get us started, I'm gonna put up something that wasn't done by me, but by a close friend, Dallas Rose haha.

This is an enormous platter, it might be a little hard to gauge to actual size of it. If anyone is interested in the recipe, I will see if I can pry it from the cold dead hands of the chef. From here on out I will try to post only my own recipes, but this just looked to delicious to not share with everyone. Props to Dallas for this feast.

So that's about it for this week's Grab Bag. If anyone can think of something they would like to hear about on a Monday morning concerning the weekend, let me know and I'll try to give some good input. I will try to add in short movie reviews with these, I know Nick is planning on doing a review of the Town sometime this week. Aside from that, the only movie I've seen recently is Devil and that's not even worth the time to talk about. I also had a throat infection from Wednesday to Saturday so that cut down on me really getting out and doing much. Thanks for reading, check back in tomorrow or Wednesday for a preview of this week's FREE WEC 52 card. If you are interested in MMA or want to know what all the fuss is about, watch this card. More to come. PEACE!