The Steelers, Mascots, and Pencils

Yes, I am well aware that the title makes absolutely no sense, but that is exactly the point of this. Some stuff in life is just ridiculous, and three of them just happened to occur in the past few weeks. First, and certainly foremost, what are the Pittsburgh Steelers thinking?! In case you haven't heard, they recently introduced a team mascot, which they named Steely McBeam. As if it wasn't bad enough that they decided to get a mascot, they decided to name it Steely McBeam. That's right. Steely McBeam. I promise. It's ridiculous. First of all, why would the Steelers get a mascot? They are one of the most decorated football franchises, have blue-collar fans, have always been about hard-nosed football, and now they decide that they need to shmooze up to the young kids at the games. Is it just me or is that completely asinine? The Steelers are way too good for this. The NFL is supposed to be a "tough guy" league, promotes violence (hitting people, not shooting people, although the players seem to do a lot of that too), and the Steelers have always had those "tough guy" teams, thanks to Bill Cowher and his no-nonsense approach, which of course lead them to a championship just two years ago. Yet now, they decided to become more of a Mickey Mouse franchise and get a stupid mascot and give it a ridiculous name. Oh he also looks ridiculous, just look here. Just a sample of who else has mascots and what their names are:

Carolina Panthers (Sir Purr)
Detroit Lions (Roary the Lion)
Buffalo Bills (Billy Buffalo)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Captain Fear)
Philadelphia Eagles (Swoop)
and my personal favorite:
Chicago Bears (Staley Da Bear) (note: I have never seen this one before, but it has Da Bear, and you hace to love that SNL skit)

Seriously Pittsburgh, what were you thinking? You have joined the likes of some of the worst teams in the NFL, and some of the least successful franchises in football with a mascot. It's a joke. Leave mascots for the NBA or Nascar or something like that. And I know some of you will jump on my case for the Mets having a mascot, but Mr. Met was the first baseball mascot out there, and at least he has a name that is respectable.

Speaking of MLB mascots, did anyone see The Mariner Moose nearly run over Coco Crisp of the Boston Red Sox on August 5th? If you haven't, here is the YouTube of it. The Moose seems to be driving a little fast, doesn't he? They don't have speed limits on those warning tracks? And does the mascot not see Coco coming out of the dugout? That's one of the first things you learn in Drivers Ed; make sure you look for people running out in front of the vehicle to get a ball or a dog or something, and yet the Moose ignores the rules of driving. I'm surprised Coco didn't punch him out or something to that effect, considering the Moose almost ended his season. Who knows what's going on inside the head of that Moose.

On the thought of things being inside your head, I seriously nearly fell off my chair when I read this article. A 59-year old German woman had a pencil inside of her head for 55 years. Yeah, just like Homer Simpson, except this is real life. Apparently she fell on a pencil when she was 4 and it lodged in her head and they didn't remove it until she was 59. Two things to say about this: 1) Why haven't we heard of this woman before?? Does she not understand that if you have something ridiculous like that you go to the press and let everyone in the world know you have a pencil in your head? I mean really, not only will you become ridiculously famous for living with a pencil in your head, but people will also probably send you money to get it out of your head, and millions of Americans with nothing better to do will come up with a "Save Margaret" campaign so that the taxpayers can waste more money on things that have no affect on our lives. You can get free surgery AND waste America's money, which we know all Europeans would love for us to do. 2nd point: Why would you ever live with a pencil in your head for 55 years? Wouldn't you figure you would have tried, say, 20 years ago, to get rid of it? I mean really that's 35 years of constant headaches and nosebleeds. I don't like getting 2 headaches in a week, never mind everyday for 55 years. I would probably try to take it out myself instead of living that long with a pencil in my head. Just ridiculous.

Clearly I am lacking quality news to write about at the moment, so if you have any ideas that don't involve the stumbling Mets or the horrific New York Giants, send them my way and you may very well see a post about something relevant. Like Penn State football. Go Lions.