How to Manage Your Post-Fall Entertainment

The calendar suggests that January 1st is the beginning of the New Year. Not for me. And not for most guys like me.

Despite being in my mid-twenties, regularly going to bed before midnight on the weekends, and having a 0.01% chance of randomly hooking up on a Tuesday night, my mind still operates on a college level. In my mental calendar, Fall and Spring represent the majority of the year (roughly four months each). Winter is a three to four week relaxing break featuring fireplaces and bowl games. And Summer is three sweaty, blurry months that I associate mostly with flip flops and beers out of a cooler.

Fall is my new year. This will forever be my mindset regardless of age, marital status, or weekly alcohol intake. Why shouldn’t it be? After a couple months of luau parties and board shorts, we start taking ourselves seriously again in the Fall. New shows and season premieres start up and relentlessly kick your Tivo’s ass back into gear in the Fall. And last, but certainly not even close to least, FOOTBALL cranks up in the Fall. Your teams–college or pro–begin new, untarnished seasons, with the possibility of anything happening, breathing new life into every straight guy lacking serious priorities in America. A new football season’s overall kick-assness firmly cements the Fall as the most eventful time of year.

And this is how my brain works and probably why I think counting down the New Year is lame if you’re not one of those people who gets a little too much gratification out of sucking face. (Steve Irony has spent years lobbying for the “New Year’s H-job” to replace make out sessions when the ball drops.)

But all good things have a counterpart. Fall has the Spring. The Spring is pretty much the Joey Fatone to the Fall’s Timberlake. From a sports and entertainment perspective, the Spring forces you to get creative. It transforms you into Jim Grobe. You’ve got to take all the shit handed to you and make shit sandwiches.

So what follows are few foolproof techniques I’m offering to assist in making the next few months a little less lame and little more kick ass. No need to thank me. I’m a public servant.

Side Note: These suggestions are strictly geared towards the categories of sports, television, movies, etc. THERE WILL BE NO FOOLPROOF TECHNIQUES TO HELP MAKE YOUR POST-FALL MORE KICK ASS BY GETTING YOU LAID. If I had foolproof techniques to getting people laid, I wouldn’t be writing this article, I would be in the middle of my sixth annual SEC campus coed tour.

AND HERE ARE A FEW TECHNIQUES TO KEEP THE POST-FALL INTERESTING

Dominate a Netflix or Blockbuster Online membership

These memberships–if used properly–are killer for several different reasons. They are relatively cheap with a lot of package options. And if you’re tenacious about it and maneuver around the online ordering and mail properly, you can really get more than your money’s worth.

Another great feature is you can just cancel these memberships once the Fall picks back up and your Tivo’s loaded and football is on. We suggest a 3 movie membership and filling up your queue with three types of titles: 1) New releases you wanted to see but not enough to go to the theatre, 2) Classics you’re too embarrassed to admit you’ve never seen when they come up in conversation (ex: “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Stripes,” etc.), and 3) Whole seasons of shows you’ve heard are good, but you never got into because you’re a loser.

The ability to rent full seasons through online services is what really makes these services awesome. Full seasons are great time eaters when there’s nothing decent on television or in theatres. They become extremely addictive but at the same time satisfying because you can binge yourself. And through the online outlets (and their copious inventory) you can do all this without having to wait for disc 3 of “Lost” to be returned by the other loser doing the same thing you are.

If you’re looking for recommendations for shows to dive into, here’s a few of our favorites:

• “Arrested Development” - Actually, you should just buy all three seasons since they’re unbelievably good and the comedy never gets old. Will Arnett as GOB Bluth is reason enough to watch. 

• “Deadwood” - Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) is in my top five TV characters of all time list (along with GOB Bluth) and single-handedly makes the show.

• “The Office” - both UK and US versions

• “Band of Brothers” - really almost everything HBO has done is worth getting into (”Rome,” “The Wire,” etc.)

• “24″ - speaking of which…

Take on “24″

If you’re new to “24,” it can be daunting for two reasons: a) the show is five seasons in and there’s a good bit of backstory you’re unfamiliar with, and b) you know it will be difficult to take a 5′6″, 160 lb. Keifer Sutherland seriously as the most bad ass dude on television since Sonny Crockett. Believe me, I completely understand. But “24″ is a good show and I’m a bit of a “24″ apologist, so I’ll be going to bat for it.

Getting into the storyline isn’t that difficult. First, every new season is just that, a new season, and while you may be missing a few tidbits here or there that would make the show slightly more fulfilling, you really won’t notice a difference. Second, Fox has relentlessly killed off characters (which is both a good and bad aspect of the show), so every new season feels very different.

And if you get really into the show and become compulsive about catching up, you can do the DVD binge thing as cited above. (Note: if you plan to DVD binge all five seasons of “24″ go ahead and take into account that everyone close to you will despise you and you may spend half your day under the impression that you can call Chloe at the CTU Los Angeles office to get you out of a tough bind.) Since “24″ has been on so long, I personally would suggest season rundowns on either Fox.com or Wikipedia.

Side Note: If I did have the foolproof “getting laid” technique knowledge, the first person I’d get in touch with is the guy who chronicled every “24″ episode on Wikipedia.

As for issue number two, Keifer as Jack Bauer, I must say as both a hardcore “24″ fan and a person who absolutely despises the miscasting of important roles (I plan to devote an entire article to how Kevin Connelly ruins “Entourage” for me before their new season starts up), I have never once found Keifer’s Jack Bauer bothersome. And the weird part is that Keifer himself bugs me. Every time I see him outside of when he’s playing Jack Bauer I find myself thinking, “I wouldn’t have a beer with that dude if his agent called me and told me Keifer was a big fan of mine.” It’s kind of like Bruce Willis as John McClane times 100 for me.

So, bottom line: “24″ is worth it, check it out, you won’t regret it.

Additional Side Note: I planned on having this article out before the new season of “24″ started. I suck, I know. If you want to come over to my house to watch the first four hours of the new season on my Tivo, just come join Booth on my couch one afternoon. You can get in touch with him at BoothIsTubbs@MaskesCouch.com.

Develop a Rooting Interest for Women’s College Basketball

Just kidding. We would never advise anyone to do anything associated with Women’s sports.

The NCAA Men’s Tournament Draft

Team C&T for some time has been doing a draft instead of a bracket pool for the Men’s NCAA tournament. It’s kind of like fantasy sports meets brackets. I personally think it is infinitely better than simply filling out a bracket.

It’s pretty simple, get a group of either 4 or 8 people together (8 works best), draw the draft pick selection order out of a hat, and each person draft a single team in the tournament until all teams are selected (you should do the wrap around draft where the 8th pick gets to pick twice and you work your way back from 7 to 1 and so on).

There are tons of variations you can introduce to this format, but the most basic is for each person to receive a point for every time one of their teams wins. Most points at the end wins the pot.

The draft dominates a bracket pool for a couple of reasons: 

• There is a physical draft allowing you to research teams like a loser, heckle your friends when they make ill-advised picks, and feel like stabbing the guy next to you when he picks Nevada right before you think you’re about to get a steal. 
• There are head to head matchups where you are routing exclusively against one of your friends.
• The format involves a ton of strategy since the team that normally wins made the best “value” picks in late rounds.

“The Sopranos” Season Six - The Sequel?

I know a lot of you have sworn off “The Sopranos” after a lackluster first half of the season, which, by the way, finished six months ago, which is ludicrous in itself. Divvying a season into halves and splitting the halves months apart is completely counterintuitive and emotionally detaches your fan base. Another crappy thing they did was…

I could go on for days, so let’s just say the show has grown a little frustrating and more than anything is probably just a victim of its own success. But still, you should watch. If anything, you owe it to the series. Just think of the show as your geriatric grandfather you’re obligated to see off into the sunset. You had some really good times together. And even though the nursing home smells like stale pee and crazy people continue to mumble and curse at you, you know you won’t be able to live with yourself it you don’t stick it out.

Take That Chick to a Movie

With a little downtime, you probably want to consider making some effort towards the opposite sex. Movies are good because at worst you at least saw a movie. Also, you’re guaranteed a few hours of silence if you realize early on the girl kind of sucks.

Side Note: We suggest a Saturday Matinee with no snack bar splurging until your at least 75% certain she’s going to put out.

The Post-Fall movie lineup doesn’t start to look really promising until May. After a quick glance we think it wouldn’t kill us to check out the following (in order of release):

• “Smokin’ Aces” - This movie looks like it has the potential to reinvigorate a cool niche action genre that Guy Ritchie left to rot when he gave control of his genitalia over to Madonna. And for an added bonus, a strung out Jeremy Piven should not disappoint. We’re going to go ahead and make the call that this movie will mark the Piv’s “Jack Black Apex,” where a quirky actor with a cult following gets too mainstream for his own good.

• “Ghost Rider” - This flick probably outweighs all other ‘07 movies for having the most potential to either rock or suck simultaneously. Regardless, you’re guaranteed a little Eva Mendes action, so things can’t get too bad, can they?

• “300″ - Looks to be a very cool from a visual standpoint and may have the story to back it up.

• “Shooter” - Marky Mark stars as an assassin in exile. Looks to be gritty and violent. We’re in. No word on a Funky Bunch appearance

• “Hot Fuzz” - From the guys who did “Shaun of the Dead.” We think British people are funny, so we’re all over it.

Booth’s Suggestions

I don’t have enough time to give Booth’s suggestions for Post-Fall entertainment their full due, but here’s a quick breakdown:

Television: Absorb everything American Idol.

DVD Binge: “The L-Word” seasons one and two. 

Movies: Anything with Martin Lawrence.

Sports: Everything L.A. Galaxy (for some reason Boothy has become a big fan of the MLS recently. Weird.

Booth will back with his “Best Dressed at the Golden Globes” article later this week.

Maske is the Creative Director for NextRound.net. He also likes to think of himself as a part-time writer. Email him at kmaske@NextRound.net with your questions or comments.

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