Ahhh, it feels good to be back in America. And what a time to be back! Nothing makes you more proud of your country than have to explain that the person running for president of the country you live in likes to grab women “by the pussy.” Has Trump never been to a strip club? “Look gentleman, you can touch whatever you like, just don’t grab them by the pussy.” Gotcha. Where do you keep the boobies? He probably hasn’t been to one though, because there’s usually a giant, black bouncer at the door. Eeeyyyyyy! And that shit is not “locker room talk.” Locker rooms are THE LEAST sexy places in the world. There are old, naked men EVERYWHERE. And sure, there are some locker rooms were sex is a topic of conversation. It’s called high school. And there, everyone’s bragging, but no one’s actually doing. You get me? So, in a locker room, there’s either an old man’s balls in your face, or you have no idea what your talking about, so you talk about how there’s a girl who goes to another school, but you wouldn’t know her and her and I totally did stuff. I’ve never done that of course. I had lots of the sex in high school.

So I’m back from England where I went to my cousin’s wedding. It was a lot of fun, but it could’ve been better. Which got me thinking about other weddings I liked and weddings I didn’t like. That then got me thinking about the specific things I liked about the weddings I liked, and the specific things I didn’t’ like about the weddings I didn’t’ like. I then thought there should be some type of rating system for this. Which made me think this would make a good blog post. So, I present to you the Power Ranks Wedding Scoring System.

Ideally, I’d love for the scoring to be on a scale of 0-100, but since I’m pretty much making this up as I go, it’ll probably end up being more like QB Rating with scores of 115 somehow being bad. Scoring is measured from the view of an average wedding guest. If you’re in the wedding party your day is completely different, and therefore your thoughts on the wedding overall will be different. If you’re a groomsman, you sit around in your underwear for hours drinking beers. It’s great. If you’re a bridesmaid, you have to get your makeup done at 4:45am. Not so great. Then, you have to spend the whole wedding taking care of the bride: Getting her drinks. Looking after Nana McCarthy. Bustling her dress, whatever the fuck that means. Holding up her dress while she pees. I’d be surprised if any bridesmaid enjoyed a wedding. Listen here ladies, that bitch is married. This shit is her man’s problem now. If she has a request, just point to her husband and say he’s now in a law abiding contract to do that shit for you.

Like we say at work, this is a living document and can be updated throughout. Here we go…

Logistics

• Destination Wedding: +20 points

Day of the Week

• Friday (Day): +40
• Friday (Night): +50
• Saturday (Night): +60
• Saturday (Day): +65
• Sunday (Day): +30
• Sunday (Night): +15

Ideally, one should not have to take off work to go to the wedding. This doesn’t include travel, if you have to take a day off to travel to a wedding, so be it. There also should, not ideally but definitely, be a recovery day after your wedding. And as usual, drinking while the sun is up, is the best.

Travel

• Proximity of pregame bar to service: +5 for walking distance
  • Everyone loves a good tailgate. Why not one before a wedding? Plus, grabbing a beer before the wedding is makes sitting through a 2-hour Filipino Catholic mass just a little bit easier.
• Proximity of reception from service:
  • -1 point for every minute over 20
  • +10 points for walking distance
  • +20 if they’re in the same place
    • What the fuck are we waiting for?! Let’s get this party started. You’re married, let’s celebrate.
• Public Transportation easily available afterwards (Cabs included): +5 points
  • On a random Saturday night, it’s a wonderful feeling to walk out of a bar, stick your hand out and have someone drive you right to your door. Why would a wedding be any different?
• Transportation Arranged (Bus back to the hotel): -5 points
  • You’d think this would earn you positive points, but that bus always leaves AS SOON AS the wedding is over. If the wedding ends at 11pm, that bus is hits the road at 11:01pm. I’m always milling around looking for my jacket, hugging my family, taking a piss, chugging the last of my drink. I love a good mill. And sometimes, the couple will think about this and get a second bus that leaves later, but then you’re stuck on an idling bus sobering up, waiting for the clock to strike 2am so the bus will take you back to the hotel.
• Someone has to drive home: -10 points
  • Nobody should ever drive home drunk, right Timmy? If I were you, I would befriend as many recovering alcoholics and pregnant/breastfeeding women as you can.

Wedding Ceremony

Venue

• Church: -5
  • Church pews are mad uncomfortable. And churches are always hot. Boooo!
• Outside: +10
  • Outdoor weddings are the fucking jam. Know why? Cause nothing looks better than wearing sunglasses with a suit. I feel like I’m in Ocean’s 11. Lemme grab a selfie cuz I look like a BAWSE. Of course, my mom is the only person on the planet that thinks you should take off your sunglasses for a photo. Ah yes, I should remove this accessory that perfectly frames my face and hides any unevenness, and then squint into the sun. WHAT A LOVELY PICTURE!!!
• Bar/Restaurant: +5

Length of Service

• Full Mass -5
  • I’m not catholic. But I’ve sat through so many freaking wedding masses that I know all the words. Why do we have to sit through a WHOLE MASS after the couple gets married. Congrats! The people you all care about so much have shared this moment with you, now let’s talk about GOD. Snoozefest! Also, I’ve been to waaay too many services where the priest doesn’t even know the couple. “You know, when I was talking to Mary and Jake earlier– John? Jim! Jim. When I was talking to Mary and Jim earlier, I really could feel the love between them.”
• Full Filipino Mass -10
  • I was standing in that mass for 2 HOURS! No, the mothers of the bride and groom do not need to light a candle at the same time to signify whatever the fuck. That shit is dumb.
• Anything under 15 minutes: +1 point for each minute under 15
  • Really all you need is a photo of the two people standing in front of someone looking like they’re legally allowed to marry you, you need the two people to say “I do” and you need the two people to kiss. That can take place in about 15 minutes. What else do you need?!?

Bonus Points

• Drink in your hand during the service: +10 points
  • This feels disrespectful to look at in print. But nothing makes you happier than seeing people you care about getting married, while holding an ice cold beer in your hand.
• Available Bathroom: +3 points
  • Regardless of if you’ve been drinking or not, a mass takes a long time. As soon as the priest says, “Ladies and gentleman, thank you for joining us in the celebration of….” I immediately have to pee. If I can sneak off while the couple pretends to come out of the church six times in a row so the photographer can get that perfect action shot, then that’s worth some points.
• Friend does the service: +5
  • Just so you know, Woody is available to do your service. I bet you could pay him in beer!

Reception

Pre-Dancing

• Great Food: +5 points
  • Honestly, who remembers the food at a wedding? It’s important because it soaks up all the booze, but really it’s just a means to an ends. Wedding food is generally somewhere between “okay” and “good,” so great wedding food stands out. But you don’t want to eat too much food at a wedding because then you could get too full, have to poop, get a cramp on the dance floor, or worse, sober up. So it ultimately can’t be worth that much.
• Open Bar: +10 points
• Cash Bar: -15 Points
  • While I was writing this, I was trying to figure out what I found disappointing about my cousin’s wedding. And then I remembered, I had to pay for all my drinks! Not only is it a huge bummer to pay for your drinks at a party, it also kills the flow of the wedding. No one is on the dance floor because everyone’s in line at the bar.
• Signature Cocktail: +2 points
• Jell-O Shots: +5 points
  • This happened at my cousin’s wedding, so it obviously wasn’t ALL bad. That said, they had the consistency of canned cranberry sauce and came on little porcelan spoons. Not quite the experience I was used to with Jell-O shots.
• Wedding Party Intros: -10 points
  • This shit must be stopped. It’s awful. It’s awkward for EVERYBODY. It’s awkward for the wedding party people who can’t dance* but have to come up with something creative on the fly with a person they’ve never met before. It’s awkward for the people watching. It’s terrible. Can we just stop doing this?

*Note: I’ve never been to a wedding with more than like 3 black people. That’s on me.

Music

• Good Band: +25 points
  • I’ve been to a few weddings with bands, and when they’re great, it’s like being at your own personal, little rock concert. It’s dope.
• Bad Band: OMG everyone go home
  • I can’t think of anything worse. Holy shit, this sounds like a fate worse than death.
• Solid DJ: +15 Points
  • I mean, all you have to do is play “Hey Ya!”, “Uptown Funk”, “Crazy in Love”, “Shake It Off” and not play the “Chicken Dance” and you’ve done you’re job.
• Bad DJ: -10 points
  • DJs are meant to be heard but not HEARD, you feel me? You’re here to play music, not talk on the mic. Also I went to an awful wedding where the DJ played this song that went like this (tune of: The Farmer in the Dell): The bride cuts the cake, The bride cuts the cake, Hi ho the dario the bride cuts the cake. It made me want to run up there, steal the cake knife and stab myself in the neck.
• Plugged in iPod: +5 points
  • This is a fine way to save money, but a DJ can read the room or take requests (Hmmm maybe DJs shouldn’t take requests. Yeah, you don’t want Aunt Janet requesting “We Are Family” every 12 minutes). But an iPod is guaranteed to play the music you like. But it’s the music YOU like, not what everybody likes.
• Dance Floor:
  • +5 points for adequate size (25+ people comfortably / 50+ uncomfortably)
    • If there’s 50 people on the dance floor Band/DJ gets +10 points
  • -2 point for too small
    • Too many places just try to throw together a dance floor where there’s not enough room for one. It really kills the flow. I need serious space for my sick dance moves.
• Bonus points for the following songs:
  • +2 “Twist and Shout” The Beatles
  • +2 “ABC” The Jackson 5
  • +3 “Love Shack” the B-52’s
  • +3 “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” Whitney Houston
  • +4 “Hypnotize” Notorious B.I.G.
  • +5 “Regulators” Warren G

Miscellaneous

• Fireworks: +25 points
• Late Night Food: +8 points

So there you have it. A scientific and definitive list, that I completely made up just now. I have not gone back and looked to see if these numbers check out at all. I’m sure you could have the best wedding in the world and it’d score 35 on this scale. I’m pretty excited for Mrs. Commish to come up to me this weekend and be like “Woody told me, you said I had a bad wedding.” And I’ll have to patiently explain that she had a great wedding and I had a lovely time, and the scoring is arbitrarily based on how much booze you can consume in a given time. But I’ll probably be drunk by the time I see her, so it’ll just come out as “Maybe you shoulda had beer in the church!!” and then it’ll be awkward. This is my cross to bear, though. These takes are just to fire to hold back. It’s my burden.

This Week’s Level: When you underestimate the size of the tupperware to put your leftovers in and you have to put it all in a different one, because the first one was too full. Except the leftovers are bullshit.

I was going to go into the RATINGS CRISIS!! but there are much smarter people, who are much better writers and can make much better points than I can since it’s their day job. Kevin Clark for The Ringer, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite football writers, talks about how the level of play this year has gone down because the Rookie Salary Cap makes it more beneficial to not pay veteran players and replace them with younger players, who are not as skilled (Pats fans nodding their heads). He also goes into a lot more detail about the ratings issue here. Drew Magary of Deadspin makes the great point (that I wish I had thought of!) that the NFL has a star problem, with Manning and Skittles retiring, Romo hurt and Brady suspended (and whose fault was that?!), but also cracking down on celebrations has made it harder to root for the fun players in the league. Over at Barstool, PFTCommentator says that it’s our fault for not watching, which… fair point. I honestly think Thursday football sucks because they only get two days to practice. And (HOT TAKE WARNING), I blame Sean McDonough! He is super boring. #FreeTirico

But with yesterday’s non-suspension of Vontaze Burfict, I felt the need to call out Goodell’s other bullshit. So, Burfict received a $75K fine for this:

But nothing for this:

Which, by the way, my favorite commentator, Dan Fouts, was commending Burfict for saying he HAS to go at players knees since he can’t go for their heads. What a hell of a guy!

Fuck this guy. So, he’s suspended for the first 3 games of the season for being a ridiculously dirty player. Then, he comes back and directly targets a guy’s knees and stamps on a guy’s ankle when he’s not even involved in the play. In the same game! But no, just fine him $75K when he makes $2.3 million this year alone, with a $775,000 signing bonus and a $200,000 workout bonus, whatever that means.

Dog Shit of the Week

English Food. Ugh, this week’s “Dog Shit of the Week” is more like “Human Who Shits for an Entire Week.” English Food consists of meat and potatoes. Fish (meat) and Chips (potatoes). Burger (meat) and Fries (potatoes). Bangers (meat) and Mash (potatoes). Shepherd’s Pie (meat under potatoes). Steak and Kidney Pie (meat and potatoes in a pie). And they wash it all down with 20oz of lovely, flat, warm, brown ale. My shits were like bricks. I didn’t even need to flush. My shits were so dense, they just went straight down the pipes. You think Rhys Farts are bad now…

Look, I’m not the healthiest guy in the world. I’m probably a good 5-10 lbs (or 15-20) overweight and I love me a burger and a buncha beers, but what does a motherfucker have to do to get a salad in that country. We looked at 14 restaurant menus looking for one with a salad on the menu. A. Salad. Just one! We found a couple places with a “Salads” section on the menu. Those places had all kinds of “salads.” Chicken salad. Tuna Salad. Salmon salad. Ham salad. But not one with any goddamn veggies. After about 45 minutes of looking at menus, I finally did get an actual salad. But it was just lettuce and salad dressing. No tomatoes, no red onions, no cucumbers, not even croutons. Just lettuce. But I didn’t care. I ate that shit like someone was holding my first born hostage and the only way to get him back was to clear my plate. When we ordered wings I ate all the celery and carrot sticks first. Jesus, how are these people all still alive?

#Power Ranks

Apologies for not being around last week. I was too busy shitting out meat and potatoes. The “Last Week” rankings actually reflect from 2 weeks ago, Week 4. But if you remember, we were all 12 that week. And it was awesome.

12. Wide Right (Last Week: 7)

88 points?! Holy shit that’s bad. Do you realize how shitty that is? It’s one thing to not break 100. I think we’ve all been a little too excited for Fantasy Football on Sunday and accidentally not managed to score 100 points and then have to explain how we don’t know what happened and that it’s never happened before. But not even being able to score 90? That only happened 3 times all of last year. And only once the year before that. This year the league is averaging 141.52 points per matchup. By Woody Math, 88 points is less than half of that average. I know you’re still 3-3 and there’s some crappy teams below you in the league standings, but 88 points is pathetic. Aren’t you up at like all hours of the night? Work that waiver wire. Do some research. C’mon man.

11. TuesdaysAtSpecks (Last Week: 8)

Timmy’s fucked. He’s lost 3 in a row to make him 1-5. He’s second to last in scoring and he hasn’t even had that tough of a schedule; he’s 5th in points against. He’s averaging a good 10 points below the league average. I don’t know how he’s gonna turn his season around. Maybe some Bong Snaps? Well, those didn’t really work for you last year either. But they were fun!

10. Lance Harbor (Last Week: 6)

Hang on, Brendo couldn’t score 90 either?!? What’s going on??* I also can’t figure out what going on with Brendo’s team. This season he’s scored 147, 90, 173, 114, 137, and now 89. He’s either winning by an average of 25 points or losing by and average of 57. If things hold up, Brendo should beat JD 150 to 125.

*I’m very aware that I’m definitely jinxing myself to putting up 65 points this week. You don’t have to tell me.

9. Chocolate Pudding (Last Week: 11)

JeffWho has now lost 3 of his last 4. Sadly, he left 42.70 points from Jay Ajayi on his bench, which according to Yahoo’s little recap, “exceeded his scoring projection by a league-leading 1,756.5%”. Be sure to start him next week when he rushes 13 times for 24 yards. Fantasy is awesome!

8. Funky Cold ‘Mendola (Last Week: 9)

Yes, I realize I ranked two teams who are 1-5 and 2-4 behind three teams that are 3-3, but it’s all about the weekly performance, and PWood put in a solid weekly performance knocking off Micho. Unfortunately, he just killed yet another wide receiver. Maybe the deal PWood signed with the devil to win the championship on the backs of LeVeon Bell and Odell Beckham’s 70+ points per game is now catching up with him.

7. Wonderland VIP’s (Last Week: 12)

I almost feel bad about stealing Vegas’s highest point total. It woulda been such a good story: getting his first win of the season while getting the highest point total and the biggest blowout and grabbing the weekly payout. I said “almost” though. I don’t actually feel bad. Gimme my money!

Vegas could grab another win next week, as well. He’s going up against PWood in a matchup either team could lose. Or both. They could both lose at the same time. Because they are bad.

6. Dr.MarkusWheatonBlvd (Last Week: 10)

Holy shit, Buckets has won 3 in a row. For the first three weeks in the season Buckets was pretty much the worst team in the league, losing by an average of 36 points. But in his last three, he’s completely flipped that, winning each matchup by an average of 37. Buckets hopes to keep that going, matched up against Timmy’s terrible team.

5. #TomFuckinMaini (Last Week: 5)

#Nick had a strong win this week. He put up the third highest point total in a week when three teams scored more than 170 points. He was also able to beat Woody when he put up 162.90. He’s won 2 of his last 3 and if he’s able to beat Micho this weekend, he could jump into the top 3.

4. Limp Decker (Last Week: 2)

Things don’t look so good for Micho. He’s on a 2 game losing streak, where he’s failed to break 130 points each time. In his first four wins of the season he was averaging over 160 points per matchup. I can tell he’s gotten desperate by changing his team name. He’s got a big matchup against #Nick, who, right now, is favored.

3. Princess AmukaMARY (Last Week: 4)

I’m frightened to death of Woody’s team. He got this far and now he’s gotten Tom Brady back. He’s second in points. He’s also been unluckiest, having the most points scored against him by over 30 points. So you know his team is good. And now I’m matched up against him and I told his wife her wedding sucked.

2. Goodell’s A Man-gina (Last Week: 1)

Well JBiggs showed me. After I called his team weak, he’s just kept it rolling, winning 2 of his last 3, including beating me. That said, he’s only averaging winning by 15 points, and that drops down to 6 points per win if you remove the 54 point win over his brother. He’s proving that both of these DeSantises have some ridiculous luck, so even if your favored in a matchup with them, be worried.

1. SexyRexy&RobTheSlob (Last Week: 3)

Come on guys! Two Thursdays ago, I was licking my wounds after taking my first loss of the season and dropping out of first place. The next day I flew to England, on a VERY uncomfortable flight, mind you. I didn’t pay attention to sports, kind of at all. I watched Brady’s comeback, on tape delay. I watched his second game, on tape delay. But that’s the only football I watched (and no baseball, apparently a good thing). I still won both games by an average of 40 points. Y’all just pups!

Be sure to set your lineups and make your picks. Green Bay plays Chicago (+7.5) where both teams are ravaged by injuries. And they wonder why ratings are down? We’ve also got London Football, which, of course they didn’t play the two weekends I was there, dammit. Anyway, the Giants take on the Rams at Twickenham at 9:30am, which is right about the time me and a few other Toppa Leaguers will be finishing up the Bridge Run. That’s right, Bridge Run Day! Wake up early, run over the Newport Bridge, then start eating, drinking and watching football as soon as you’re done. It’s gonna be awesome. Providing I actually make it over the bridge. I’m gonna start stretching my Achilles now.

Have a good weekend. Hope to see some of you around.