click here for What is Irrefutably Lame? Part I

Back for another edition of ‘What is Irrefutably Lame?’, the segment where the NextRound Team (aka Team Cool & Tough) passes judgment on what you can get away with and what is irrefutably lame. REMINDER: we don’t think any of the things we’re passing judgment on are particularly cool, we’re just determining whether they should get a pass or you should get a Punch in the Face Friday nomination for them.

In case you’re still unfamiliar, check out Part I for further explanation.

And here we go…

Is Making Conversation at the Gym Irrefutably Lame?

I thought we’d start off with a no-brainer that is also kind of a public service announcement to anyone who may have somehow brainwashed themselves into thinking talking to people you don’t know at the gym is OK.

The inspiration for this struck a few weeks ago when I witnessed some Under Armour wearing goon attempt to start three separate conversations about politics with other dudes in the gym. Three separate conversations. He actually got one off the ground. I don’t really care to get into details (I don’t really care for politics), but let’s just say things got uncomfortable for everyone near the free weights. And let’s just say that it’s a good thing some genius invented the MP3 player, because otherwise this guy would have certainly taken a ten pound plate to the cranium. True story.

Bottom line: You can only speak to people at them gym if you already know them prior to the gym encounter. Head nods are the maximum form of communication for everyone else. If you find yourself attempting to start generic conversations with people just because they are in close vicinity to you and those same people completely ignore you, that’s a you problem. I’d suggest some serious internal analysis.

Making conversation at the gym is irrefutably lame.

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The original plan was for me to write a recap/review of the new episodes of “Entourage”. Just about every person I know watches the show so I figured I could piggyback its success and get some cheap readership by providing my unwarranted analysis of the season thus far, pretty much detailing what I think has been cool and what I think has sucked about the show recently.

But then over the last few weeks, something happened: just about all my analysis of the season thus far has leaned towards the suckfest side of the argument. “Entourage” has been a bit of a disappointment lately. Until last episode (where Vince decides to buy the rights to “Medellin”) nothing has happened. Celeb cameos are at an all-time low. The Vince dating his agent thing was nauseating. I feel like everything that’s happened to Drama and Turtle has happened to them before. And besides the limited “Medellin” talk there’s been no cool behind the scenes Hollywood action.

The recent suckiness has led me to a much larger question: Is “Entourage” even a good show? Or has the kick ass premise–celebrity lifestyle, behind the scenes Hollywood, concentration of guy stuff, the HBO profanity/nudity liberties–blinded us to the show’s shortcomings from the beginning. Is “Entourage” really just the television equivalent to the age old Super-Hot-Chick-With-An-STD dilemma?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the show, and I’m not questioning whether it’s watchable or not–there is nothing else on television that brings to the table what “Entourage” does (which is a totally different gripe I have with the television industry). The point I’m making is that “Entourage” is not a great show and shouldn’t be mistaken for one. A combination of the show’s blatant flaws and its inability to live up to its potential keep it from being great. If you don’t agree with me, too bad, I’m right. And here’s why:

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It’s officially less than a month until Team Cool & Tough ventures into the desert for our annual long weekend of debauchery.

We manage to leave a little bit of ourselves–dignity, self respect, liver capacity, etc.–in Vegas every year, and the recuperation time is definitely a couple of days longer than it used to be, and it’s really only a matter of time before one of us gets canned from our day job for “complete and utter incompetence and incoherence” the week after our Vegas trip. But we keep going back. Why?

Because It’s Totally Worth It.

And I’m not talking about the whole “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” deal. That’s played out anyway. Because who’s kidding who? Guys who cheat on their wives and dial up hookers, cheat on their wives and dial up hookers whether they’re in Vegas or Minneapolis.

Instead, trips to Vegas are totally worth it because they are like a visit to some foreign bizarro world. Open containers are encouraged. Degenerates are the norm. Walking out of a casino and realizing it’s daylight is something you become accustomed to. You drink Vodka tonics at 9 AM and Bloody Mary’s at 6 PM without blinking an eye. Sequences of events that would end with tasers and handcuffs back home go down in Vegas without consequence. Shit gets weird.

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This column is dedicated to passing judgment on lameness.

As your twenties creep along you find the amount of lame shit in your life increasing exponentially. I guess it correlates with all that job, relationship, responsibility, blah, blah, blah crap that “supposedly” increases in your twenties as well. Here we do our best to pretend these things don’t exist. (Most notably Booth, who is currently thumbing threw an “US Weekly” on my couch.)

And what sucks most about all the exponential lameness is that your buddies are still going to call you a douchebag, or a homo, or a doormat for all that stuff, regardless of how old you are or whether the lame stuff is avoidable or not. Chances are, you being less cool than the 18 year old version of yourself isn’t avoidable. Most of this lameness is just a direct result of your job or your girlfriend or you just simply being less cool than the 18 year old version of yourself.

The trick is a happy medium. You’re going to be able to pull off a few lame things you probably shouldn’t, and you’re going to be able to weather a lot of good natured ball busting.

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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.

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Click here for Part I.

Well, we’ve got you through Christmas day. It’s all downhill from here. You can start relaxing as relatives start dwindling back to wherever they came from. You’ve wiped your hands of the mall and its inhabitants for another year. You’re well aware of how bad you screwed up the gift for the little lady.

Side Note: In my experience, how well you did on the girlfriend’s Christmas gift can be measured on a 1 to 10 scale: 1 being cataclysmic (meaning she slashes your tires, empties your bank account, and sleeps with your archenemy) and 10 being she found your gift acceptable. I strive to stay in the 7 range. Sticking around 7 keeps your archenemy out of the picture and the bar for future gift giving at a reasonable level.

Now it’s time to sit back, enjoy not working (whether you’re technically working or not), and breeze through the week’s worth of TV goodies. New Year’s is just around the corner. Here it is:

The NextRound Guide to Holiday Television Part II…The Sequel

Note: The following guide highlights my opinion of the best of what’s out there over the holidays. All times are EST.

Tuesday, December 26th

Asking the 26th to be eventful and exciting is kind of like asking Nickelback to follow U2 on stage in concert. They’re destined to disappoint and so is the 26th. In fact, the lineup is so crappy, I’m not even going to provide a breakdown. The following are notable: “Wedding Crashers,” Cinemax, 4 PM; Motor City Bowl, ESPN 7:30 PM; and a 2 hour “Scrubs” mini-marathon on Comedy Central starting at 7 PM (the first season, which is the really clever season). Besides that, why don’t you pick up your house and see if you can get a game of pick up basketball going to work off some of that holiday weight.

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The Holidays are about family and friends and being thankful and blah, blah, blah. What really gets lost in the shuffle is all the kick ass television–mostly sports related–that starts the week before Christmas and lasts well through New Year’s. It’s roughly twenty days of college football, college basketball, NFL, and NBA bliss.

So, with this article I’m attempting to make a convenient day by day guide of all the killer stuff you need to be watching during the holidays. This should prove to be a helpful resource when you’re too busy wrapping and unwrapping gifts, glad-handing the relatives, and sneaking beers without your super-conservative aunt noticing to actually research what’s on TV every day. Part 1 will get you through Christmas Day and then Part 2 will be up just in time to count down to New Year’s.

Side note: This should also make for a nice compliment to the gambling thesis Boothy (aka Tubbs) churned out a couple of days ago. Apparently he’s now accumulated enough hours for his doctorate from UNLV.

And here it is:

The NextRound Guide to Holiday Television

Note: The following guide highlights my opinion of the best of what’s out there over the holidays. All times are EST.

Thursday, December 21st

This is about the time relatives start rolling into town and your commitments to see and spend “quality time” with people start piling up. You’ll need some “me” time in front of the TV by the end of day one.

“The Office” is a rerun. So are the handful of other decent Thursday night shows. So I suggest the following dual tuner Tivo sports action accompanied with a cold beverage to get you through the initial holiday shock. (If you’re not familiar with dual tuner Tivo action, feel free to go visit catlovers.com or wherever else you usually hang out.)

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We had a pretty decent idea. Well, I had a pretty decent idea. My barrel-assed business partner (pictured to the right) just happened to be the guy crashing on my couch when I had the decent idea.

Me being the dependable one with the decent ideas and Booth being the quasi-homeless one who lacks vision are the first of many reasons why I’m the CEO and he’s the guy who gets my coffee.

Actually, ‘Guy Who Gets the CEO’s Coffee’ is a tentative title. We’re working on something that sounds a bit more official. My current favorite is: ‘CEO’s Personal Barista’. Little more succinct, sophisticated, something chicks could mistake for important. But more on this later. For now, back to the decent idea.

Like just about everything else in our lives, the back story to the decent idea starts with our college buddies. Booth and I have a lot of friends from college. Not casual acquaintances, I’m talking a group of dudes whose frequency of communication has only slipped ever so slightly over the seven years we’ve been removed from the fraternity house. I’m positive all their names will surface soon enough, so to keep things efficient we’re just going to collectively refer to them as Team Cool & Tough going forward on the site.

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