As we know, Steve Jobs, co-founder and creative mastermind behind Apple Computer, died Wednesday at age 56.

Many have focused on Jobs and his relentless attention to detail, his company was synonymous with technological breakthrough and aesthetic beauty. And while those are important, those who latch onto those as the secret behind Apple’s indelible success and ferocious 21st-century comeback only hit the mark halfway.

What truly set Apple apart, and what truly made Jobs an innovator with whom fans and devotees of his products followed with frenzied fervor, is something far more elementary than what surely went into the 300+ patents and countless other innovations that bear Jobs’ name.

Jobs did something with technology, and by extension business, that few CEOs or computer geniuses – many of whom may have been more gifted than him – could ever hope to accomplish. Steve Jobs created products that made people feel good.

Ask anyone who’s ever purchased an Apple product, and especially ask those who’ve purchased many of them, how they feel about their purchase. Whether a Mac, an iPod, iPhone or iPad, the user always felt engaged and, in some cases, borderline euphoric, while operating that slick piece of metal in their possession. They often speak of it with the same reverence normally reserved for friends, charitable works, favorite sports teams or works of art. Apple didn’t make machines, Apple made extensions of the human soul.

Apple made products people cheered for, pined for and adored. People felt connected to Apple’s product line. It spoke to them, and after countless years of innovation and mutation, it became them.

A new breakthrough from Apple felt like a communal discovery. It felt like a kindred realization between old friends. And it’s this humanization, this amiability of Apple that connected each gadget to its creator. It didn’t hurt that Jobs spoke of his devices in much the same way a proud parent beamed about his child, and with each new release, it was as if Jobs himself was narrating his children growing up, passing through the stages of life.

And we watched them grow, we watched them evolve, and Jobs sucked us in right from conception. He created buzz, and each product delivered with a crisp, beautiful interface and intuitive design that was as revolutionary as it was simplistic. It was the bizarre union of power and likability that made Apple’s products, and Jobs himself, so enthralling. That union gave both the man and his machines two things neither technology nor business is known for: character and charm.

There were smarter people than Einstein, but Einstein came off as sweet, grounded and principled. Edison was a mad scientist, but is remembered as much for his self-deprecation and human connection with his inventions as he is for his singular genius.

Apple quite often didn’t make the first of its kind, or in rarer occasions, the best of its kind. But it did make the only anything of its kind that truly mattered and captivated the masses.

And it’s that ability to breed followers that truly is the hallmark of one’s legacy. Someone, and it’s been butchered so many times by so many that it doesn’t matter who, once wrote “In the end, no one will remember what you said or did, they will only remember how you made them feel.”

Jobs’ legacy as a man who created things that made people feel genuinely good will long outlast the usefulness of the enduring technology behind his many endearing creations.

There’s an ESPN Radio station down here in Austin, AM 1530, that plays the Mothership’s full programming lineup day-in and day-out, with the exception of some UT games, and the occasional Texas Stars tilt in the AHL. There’s no local sports programming whatsoever. Just Mike & Mike, then the Herd, then Doug Gottlieb, Brian Kenny and Jason Smith. Then, they do it all over again from the top.

Now, at first, I thought this would bother me. “No local coverage? But how will I dig into _____” and the static that followed was not of the shoddy reception, but rather of my own lack of empathy to the local sports market, and, finally, to my own realization that I never listened to local sports radio much, anyway.

WGR up in Buffalo is a fine local radio station. It’s perfect for the market, all bluster and blue-collar with hard-working, colorful local radio personalities. But I never listened to it. I listened to Scott Van Pelt and Freddie Coleman and Jason Smith. I watched PTI. I listened to the Matthew Berry and Bill Simmons podcasts (though, in Simmons’ case in particular, the quality of his program is wildly inconsistent, and it all depends upon the quality of his guests). And that’s it. Still my routine.

As much as I enjoy Buffalo sports, I realized outside of watching (or listening to) the games and reading the local columnists and corresponding SB Nation Blogs for the Bills and Sabres and Syracuse Orange, I didn’t really need all that extra local coverage. Just give me the game locally, and the compelling national storylines, delivered by smooth, polished, engaging personalities – of which there are precious few.

All this extra stuff, all the incessant 24-7 coverage, the rampant repetition of tired talking points by local and national media .. it is exhausting. I feel by 530pm, I can arrange PTI’s entire C-block by myself. Local sports hosts expressing trumped-up outrage over trading a fifth-round draft pick … is exhausting. It registers an 0.8 on my Quality-of-Life Richter Scale.

Over half of all men who wish to go into television broadcasting start out by going into sports. I was one of them. I did the weather for a year. That was enough. Amazingly, based upon the volume of talent it takes to put together a pre-game show, there’s enough jobs for them. Are we losing sight of what’s really important?

Maybe we were supposed to just wake up, listen to our favorite personality deliver the sports news and watch the game at night. Stats can be followed at our leisure. If we were that big into numbers that really mattered, maybe we’d all be stock traders instead of stat junkies. Maybe we could come up with pro-bowl ballots for the S&P, or Top 10 Sexiest Senators.

It doesn’t have that ring to it. At least not yet. For all our deep thinking and disproportionately-placed passion is squarely centered upon sports, for which there are now nearly 300 radio stations devoted squarely to them.

Hi, sir, long-time listener. First-time caller. Why does the lack of a promising prospect at Left Tackle anger you more, sir, than your kid’s juvenile arrest record?

Part of this is due to immersion, as a writer, as well as a fan, I experience dozens (if not hundreds) of sports videos, clips, articles, columns, games and discussions per day, and I am forced to extract what’s important, relevant and profound. Part of this is due to exhaustion, as that very same drowning in sports content numbs and wears at the flesh between my earlobes and elsewhere. Part of this is due to dependency, as the longer I’ve liked and followed sports, the more of my ‘fix’ must be plundered to ascertain similarly heightened levels of intrigue.

Still, one very real, very gradual, phenomenon locked my attention and continues to stare it down: I’m now the same age as an athlete in their “Athletic Prime.” I’m no longer looking up to athletes as heroes or role models, I’m no longer college-aged, hoping to go pro, and I’m no longer a wide-eyed rookie hoping to grow into my tremendous talent or spread my wings into superstardom. No, I’m now the same age as “the guy.” Your franchise cornerstone.

I was sitting on the couch with the lady last week as she followed the oblong pigskin with me – her staring not so much at the TV, but rather through it, eyes half-glazed over in boredom/exhaustion/confusion – and that thought crept back into my head: “This is just a game.”

Then Marshawn Lynch broke through with the “run of the century”, a 67-yard scamper through which he broke (at my count) nine tackles, including a fanatical stiff-arm where he chucked a New Orleans defender halfway to Tacoma. It brought shivers to my shoulders and a silent scream to my throat. My emotions were, as follows, “HOLY SH*T! … I gotta text my friends … Where’s the video! … Amazing! … Why did the Bills trade him? … I am so mad … Tell me he turns into an all-time great … Where was this in Buffalo? … Sonuvab***h, Seattle’s not just going to cover, but win outright … What an upset!” This all went through my head in the span of 60 seconds. When I was a college senior, Marshawn Lynch was a senior, too … in High School.

I then realized, I am wildly engaged with, and three tax-brackets beneath, athletes who may be younger than I. But, yet, they appear to exist outside the constructs of age. I don’t feel older than them, but when empirically remember that I am, it bewilders me. I think, “How did they get to do what they do?”

Athletes talk endlessly about “doing what it takes to win” and “putting in the effort” and you hear about work-ethic, dedication and “leaving it all out there on the field.” And I realize that was never me. And that these folks who are, by and large, physical specimens that could outrun and outhit a Toyota Prius (quite easily, I assume), are also geared specifically to do just that, and have trained their brains to do so from a tender age. They’re young, they’re powerful and they’re committed. Say what you will about some of the legal transgressions or smack-talk, but these are some incredible human beings.

LeBron James this past summer caught a bit of flack for throwing Cleveland under the bus on Live Television. But he also donated millions to charity that same night, and consulted with financial planners, agents, coaches, players, family, friends, supporters, branding experts, CEOs and other professional athletes to make what he could out of a threshold situation. It was calculated, cunning and remarkably mature, especially for a 25 year-old. My 25th birthday, I got thrown out of a bar for vomiting in public, throwing a potted plant, picking a fight with a 60 year-old man and dropping a few drunken n-bombs. What’s the opposite of “doing what it takes to win?” Yeah, I did that.

So when I think of these young pups playing the game, giving their all on the field, and I refer to one of them as a “headcase” or “immature”, I say it with an off-hand, tongue-in-cheek reverence. Does it take a somewhat crazy individual to administer as much physical pain on another human being as possible for 60 continuous minutes once a week? Absolutely. And it probably predisposes them to locker-room outbursts, DUI arrests and the like. You gotta cope with it somehow. But immature?

Well, these cats are younger than I, making the same mistakes I did, and finding out the hard way there’s folks who want to take advantage of you and probably will. But, in every concrete sense of the word, these same people did it all the right way. For their every success can be measured empirically in stats and rings, wins and losses. Real life outside the lines ain’t that black-and-white. And they’re getting paid seven (sometimes eight!) figures over the course of a mere 5-to-10 years to measure their strength in that fashion. I respect that.

So what happens when you turn 28? If you’ve aged properly, you’d think what happens is your admiration’s been de-mythologized. Athletes turn from heroes in a Greek sense, to heroes in an Algerian (not the country, the author) sense: It is their routine, their workman-like approach to the grandiose and mystical that’s admired, rather than the grandiosity and mystical itself.

In other words, you see the men behind the gods. You stop believing in miracles, and yet you start believing there’s men and women out there who can run through the five boroughs or New York City faster than any regular human can drive through them during a regular workweek, because you see it on the 6pm Sportscenter.

Less imagination, more incredulity. Welcome to the age of coming of age.

Luckily, two were Miami-OSU and USC-Texas. Unforgettable tilts that will go down in sporting lore as two of the greatest games played in any sport.

The other was the Oklahoma-FSU game, which ended 13-2, I believe. A hideous eyesore that left me perplexed and nonplussed.

I’ve seen parts of others, but I often tune late, catch intermittently, or turn off early due to lack of competitiveness or lack of interest.

I’ll watch the Super Bowl to its bitter end, even when the teams have slugged it out to a one-sided drubbing. I’ll watch every game of a World Series sweep. Ditto for the NHL and NBA. I religiously watch college basketball’s championship tussle. Why can’t I get up for the BCS Title game?

The answer’s not an indictment of the BCS, I believe more often than not, they get the two best teams in the country into the game. It still doesn’t feel like the “National Championship.”

If the college football season’s a novel with each week as a chapter, then bowl season is not the final chapter or conclusion, or even an epilogue. It’s an Appendix. The title game is the final in a series of 35 extras posted at the tail-end of the novel that stretches 13 heart-stopping weeks (or chapters).

It doesn’t have the feel of the final chapter because the structure and conditions aren’t the same. Namely, the one condition that matters most: This game is not played on Saturday.

Pro football is played on Sundays. Its playoff games are played on Sundays (though, sometimes Saturdays, to accommodate eight teams). Its Super Bowl is played on Sunday.

Every meaningful college football game is played on Saturday, from Week 1 to Conference Championships. Sometimes on a Thursday or Friday. In bowl season, for TV ratings or marketing purposes, this is to flattened affect switched up, and we get exhibition bowl games played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Holidays and in the afternoon and late at night and by the time we get to the National Championship game, on Monday, January 10, we’ve had enough.

It’s a phenomenon called “State-Dependent Conditioning.” If certain conditions are met, we’re more likely to absorb and entertain ideas and experiences. It’s why they pump fake bakery or BBQ smells in Disney World. It’s why there’s a last-call and a dinner bell. We’re dogs, and on Monday, January 10, Pavlov’s taking a nap, or vacationing in the Lesser Antilles.

So, my proposal to fix college football is simple. It isn’t to overhaul or scrap the BCS at all.

Keep your 35 bowl games and do the following with them:

Play eight on the first Saturday in December. Play seven on the second Saturday in December. Play six on the third. Five on the fourth. You want TV money? Stretch them to Friday Night if you need.

On New Year’s Eve, play four more games (love the Cotton Bowl as a late-afternoon game here), and on New Year’s Day, play the Orange, Sugar, Rose and Fiesta Bowls. We’re used to college football on New Year’s. The first Saturday after the New Year, at 7pm EST, play the BCS Title Game.

It’s simple. It provides us a coherent narrative; a progression. There’s clarity and a build-up and a division and a story arc. We’re given time to digest, preview and process. It’s perfect.

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That said, we hope you’ve enjoyed your stay here today. Enjoy the game tonight, we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Just remember to come back when you’re finished.

So, got all that? Because, contained within those 11 paragraphs is the entire sad, sorry, sick state of the American way of life. I’ll list the salient data points, in order.

1. Tucker Carlson believes Michael Vick should have been executed … for animal cruelty and dog-killing.

2. Michael Vick killed dogs and is back playing, starring in, and being fawned over, in the NFL

3. People are unhappy about this, except for fans of Vick or the particular team he plays for

4. White people care about dogs more than they care about black people

5. Dogs get fed homemade and organic foods, dressed in designer outfits and nuzzled like infants

6. Black folks are apparently afraid of dogs, because redneck honkies would use attack dogs to maul their great-great-grandparents in the Jim Crow South

7. People can write for the Atlanta Post without establishing an iota of coherence (seriously, the article waffles like a cone)

8. Some whites hate dogs

9. Some black people love dogs

10. DOGS GET THROWN F@#KING BIRTHDAY PARTIES

11. Coltrane is an awesome name for a dog

12. God taught us humans to love dogs

13. Apparently, Gandhi judged the greatness of a nation by the way it treats its animals

14. People breed dogs for fighting

15. Dogfighting has nothing to do with football

16. Vick is apparently amending his character BY PLAYING QUARTERBACK REALLY WELL

17. White people hate black men with money

18. Tucker Carlson has no problem with Sarah Palin shooting moose from a helicopter.

19. Actually, I have no problem with shooting moose, either. After all, they are moose.

Conclusions:

Tucker Carlson is a douchebag who has a media voice because it is purposely inflammatory, and it is that very caustic abrasiveness that brings in ratings and ad revenue. It’s why Rush Limbaugh has a steady following, and Magic Johnson’s late-night show didn’t last past the C-block.

It’s never too late to correct a mistake, or to atone and amend one’s past. However, in America, the only way that you do this is through bringing success and wealth to others. Michael Vick’s assumed ‘redemption’ has little to do with his character, and everything to do with he’s putting up MVP-type numbers on a playoff-bound Philadelphia Eagles team.

People are more likely to love you if you’re the same color skin, or wearing the right color jersey.

Cute animals are the only ones worth protecting. You can’t club seals, kill dogs or torture kittens, but you can cage cows, whip horses, skin sheep and shoot moose.

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White Americans are ignorant, two-faced, scum-of-the-Earth, opportunistic, backhanded pricks. We butcher attempts at Spanish, we incorrectly recite Jay-Z lyrics to black people in a sad attempt to sound hip, we post advocacy links all over our Facebook walls for gay rights / animal rights / Darfur sovereignty despite never donating a drop of time or money to any cause, can’t tell various Asians or Eastern Europeans apart and think we know India because we’ve seen “Slumdog Millionaire” …

White Americans appear tolerant, knowledgeable, cultured, warm, caring and accepting when we presume it will make us money, earn us status or reflect well upon our character. When that incentive isn’t there, when the spotlight is off, well …

… let’s just say cooking tacos for exchange students from Costa Rica to give them “a taste of home” is sorta like giving a frog you catch a stick and a leaf in a bell jar to make it “comfortable.”

We (Yup, I’m white, too) don’t know anything, and when we try to care enough to know, we come off awkward and contrived. I know this.

So I’ll just go on cheering for the black men who put the ball in the end zone for my team, and cursing out the white men who put the ball in the end zone for the other team, and I’ll probably make the worst Pad Thai ever and ask a gay man for some fashion tips.

And then I’ll drink the pain of never being able to fully grasp it all away, because the more bubbles there are inside of me, the more comfortable I’ll be inside the big, giant, protective one my culture’s created for me.

See you Monday. I promise you, I will still be alive. Enjoy Wild-Card Weekend.

I applaud him for the column (it’s tremendously heart-warming) and for the move. Right call.

Just when you think society degrades every day, just take heart that the current generation is more tolerant, accepting and welcoming than any American generation to date.

As for that whole selfish, self-righteous, social imperialism, narcissism thing … well, we have a lot to work on there. Baby steps.

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That’ll do it for Thirsty Thursday. Grab yourself a cold one, and always remember: He who yells the loudest loses his voice.

See you right back here tomorrow.

What, no love for BenJarvis Green-Ellis? (I would love that spelled out on my jersey, if I didn’t, you know, hate the Patriots with the burning ferocity of 1,000 suns.)

In fact, he’s beaten out #2 (Tom Brady) and #3 (Wes Welker). This just in: If you’re black and play sports in Boston, you should probably think about relocating.

Boston’s sports fans are whiter than Wonder Bread. But why *that* city?

Black athletes have long taken note and candidly spoke about Boston’s rep as a racist city. But, coaches, players, fans and city execs have ultimately shunned the interview opportunity, which is odd, because it’d be a golden ticket out from under the cloud of racism that engulfs the city when it comes to sports.

We found an old Henry Abbott article, which helped shed some slight, based upon a study done by Boston Magazine.

But more than anything, Gonzalez found a disappointing willingness among Bostonians to pipe up. His story ends like this:

The city’s reputation for racism endures because we don’t want to talk about it, because the press seems more interested in reporting on the controversy than in initiating a useful dialogue, because athletes are more careful today than they’ve ever been. There aren’t many Bill Russells anymore-someone who speaks his mind because his conscience demands it. Russell once told me he thought of himself as a man first and a basketball player second. These days, with millions riding on endorsement contracts and a capricious media to navigate, candor is seen as bad business. In a way, that’s understandable, but it would be a powerful thing to hear from more of today’s athletes. Because what Russell realized that so many current players still don’t is this: The best way to move forward is often to deal with the past.

To that end, the city itself could probably learn something from the experiences of Guy Stuart, the Kennedy School lecturer. Before he came to Boston, Stuart, who is white, spent a decade working in black communities in Chicago. It was there that he learned a useful lesson: If you want to improve race relations, “don’t go around simply saying you’re not racist.”

UPDATE: More insight on the same topic from Vincent Thomas of SLAM. He concludes that, as a black man, he now has no trouble rooting for the Celtics, but he doesn’t wonder where the hesitation comes from:

You gotta admit, those Celtics squads — especially from the mid to late 80s — were downright NBA aberrations. It almost looked weird. You would be hard-pressed to find a playoff squad that rotated in three white players for more than 15 minutes a night by that time. The Celtics, on the other hand, would feature five, sometimes six white players in a nine-man rotation. And they were so good as a team and so tough to beat that it irritated the folks in black neighborhoods. They had made the NBA “theirs” and here comes a team full of Birds, Mchales, Waltons, Ainges, Jerry Sichtings and Scott Wedmans. There was nothing The Chief or freckle-face DJ could do to put lipstick on that pig, no lily to gild right there. Some of the media coverage played into racial stereotypes. Boston was portrayed as smart, tough, and industrious. To let writers and announcers tell it, the Celtics used skill, resource, fortitude, guile and toughness to outwit and outplay the predominantly black squads that relied solely on athletic gifts. (Interestingly, though, this enterprising squad’s coach, KC Jones, a black man, never hoisted the Red Auerbach Trophy as coach of the year.) Some of these perceived slights or biases were just that — perceived, drummed-up — umbrage. Still, it resulted in deep, pervasive, long-lasting backlash within the black community.

Boston’s alleged sports racism can be deduced from the following takeaways:

1. The extreme prolonged success of certain white players, or teams of disproportionately white makeup in Boston, has made it appear (to media and the outside, as well as players) that Boston is a city that cheers for white people. This is aided by the white players playing well. (Think Duke Basketball.)

2. Successful Boston teams and players are often described in stereotypical terms like ‘scrappy’ and ‘tough’ and ‘intelligent’, which is off-putting and gets flagged as racist.

3. The media reports on allegations of racism, and the Boston institutions accused of it (municipal and regional institutions, teams and coaches) refuse to entertain useful discussion about whether or not this racism, in fact, exists – which makes it look like they’re hiding something.

You’ll never guess which white Patriots player has the best-selling jersey [Deadspin]

The bowls now are named after whatever company ponies up enough cash. All references to the wheres and whats have long since passed.This is what happens when you need to fill up 35 Bowl Games that now span over 35 days.

Here, we count down the ten worst:

10. Chick-fil-A

There was a time this was called the Peach Bowl. Made sense. It was the bowl game in Georgia. Now it’s Chick-Fil-A. I realize it’s a tasty restaurant, but it’s a downgrade from a bowl name that was fitting and evocative.

9. Bridgepoint Education Holiday

Bridgepoint Education is … what? Online college? Textbook factory? Diploma mill? Teachers Union? Is this game played in a lecture hall?

8. GoDaddy.com

At halftime, Danica Patrick will take off her sweater.

7. Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg

An Irish Pub and a Russian City? Do the teams pre-game for pre-game?

6. TicketCity

Nothing says “sports event cash grab” like naming your bowl game after what sounds like a ticket-scalping service.

5. Kraft Fight Hunger

I’ll tell you what … if you want to fight hunger, you’re going to need a bigger bowl.

4. AdvoCare V100 Independence

AdvoCare V100. That’s either the softest-sounding pickup truck ever to roll off the assembly line, or V1-V99 of the name were even worse.

3. uDrove Humanitarian

Being a humanitarian … Soooooooo past tense. Bonus points for reminding me of uPick strawberries.

2. BBVA Compass Bowl

SWF seeking BBVA. Compass Bowl? Really? Played in … heh. Birmingham, Alabama. Gotta do something there, I guess.

1. R+L Carriers New Orleans

I’m sorry, but any bowl game that sounds like a Calculus Proof or a support group for people with dormant STD’s is going to earn the top spot. Hi, my name’s Joe, and I’m an R+L carrier. Please don’t discriminate.

Also if you’re like me, if those various ventures include asthetically pleasing members of the opposite sex, you spend most of the evening drooling back into your beer and coming up with sucktastic Shakespearean syntax like “Uhhh… [stares out window, whistles]… sure is a nice place in here. Want to go somewhere els… can I buy you a… [duck and cover]? Well, I’ve seen better in Agricultural Monthly.”

Don’t fret, young lad or lassie. For there are now other things to do at the local hangout besides get your broken dignity handed back to you on a wadded up pile of soaked bar napkins.

Bar games soothe the sting of a sword fight breaking out at your local dive. They provide comfort, solace and entertainment for you. Yes, you: the everyman, the champion of the underdog, the weekend warrior of wasted. Glenlivet always tastes better when hand-delivered while tears of inadequacy well in the eyes of the defeated.

Today, we canonize these saintly outlets for the athletically challenged by counting down the 10 greatest games to play while you may or may not be intoxicated.

Top 10 Best Bar Sports

10. Golden Tee

Question: Where can you find the chicks at the bar?

Answer: Nowhere near the Golden Tee.

Who doesn’t love putting in dollar after dollar to spin a free-flowing wheel with enough force to poke the eyes out of a rhino?

9. Big Buck Hunter

You’re in the bar with your boys, cranking back cans of Ice Beer while listening to some Bon Jovi. What should appear to your blurry-eyed soul? A giant moving screen in a box … with guns. This is Duck Hunt on steroids, Oregon Trail for the Apple IIe kids who didn’t think the Buffalo hunting was lifelike enough.

8. Foosball

Only an American who knew nothing about soccer could come up with a certifiably addicting soccer experience that plays nothing like the game itself. You can perform flips seventeen times over by brushing the handle with brute force, spinning the ball in every direction but the goal itself.

7. Touch Screen

Video Crack. All sorts of strategy puzzles involving cards, Japanese symbol blocks and jumbled words. We were partial to 11-ball. What’s better on a beer-n-coke binge than trying to slap your fingers against magically colored pool balls, to make them add up to 11 and disappear? Nothing. We played it from the happy hour to the witching hour to the “Turn off the [bleep]ing sun!” hour.

6. Wii

Best played against a 120″ projector screen in a glowing room. Super Mario Kart or Wii Bowling or Wii golf in the company of total strangers? With the potential to belt someone across the face with hard-coated plastic if the game gets too intense? Win.

5. Beer Pong

Surely the greatest drinking game of all time. Not quite as spectacular when played with virtual strangers, in front of an audience of 47 drunken frat-boys who chant “chug! chug! chug!” after every ball is sunk. (We, too, were once a frat-boy, but we were too busy making out with your girlfriend to chant.) Classic. The concept of playing a basketball-type skill game in an attempt to reach unholy levels of debauchery is a stroke of brilliance. Beware, though, the correlation: the better you get at Pong, the worse you are going to be at driving. If you find yourself running the table, do call a cab.

4. Bubble Hockey

Foosball’s Canadian cousin made inroads in the United States during the Miracle on Ice era, as many bars set up the plexi-glassed time-waster to give the everyman a chance to knock that Commie scum back to Vladivostok. Personally, I enjoyed playing as the CCCP and riding my imaginary line of Bure, Mogilny and Federov to plastic puck domination.

3. Shuffleboard

Not the old man VFW game played on asphalt. Oh, no. The bar game with grated parmesean atop a hardwood table, and magically floating metal discs which travel everywhere except to where you want. Addicting, invigorating and suspenseful, this is quality family entertainment for when you want to ditch the family.

2. Pool

So this one time, we were playing some billiards at a dive bar, and some biker challenged us to a game of nine-ball, with drinks on the line. Now, there’s a hustler! Somehow, we defeated him on the felt table and it was his turn to bring us an icy cold Eliot Ness.Well, this no-good drifter forgot to inform us he was on a tab and his credit card got declined. After he spent some time swapping jabs with the bar owner and cursing off a few cops, Eliot Ness was ours on the house for the rest of the evening. We loved pool before that night. We really love it now. There’s nothing sexier than the way a girl caresses the cue, there’s nothing sweeter than a well-struck break and there’s nothing more satisfying than running the table at your local bar, drinking for free till the sun shines.

1. Darts

Darts is a humbling experience. In theory, it seems so simple. You toss a winged needle at a pizza board and try to get that sucker to stick in the slice of pie that yields the number you need. Fat chance of that ever happening until you’ve had a six-pack or two. Your hands shake, the eyes of patrons gaze at your intense stare and you end up spraying that dart against the window. However, once you get good (or drunk) enough to calm yourself down, the perfectly struck Dart round is second only to the perfectly struck golf shot in terms of pure ecstasy.

So meet us out sometime and challenge us … you know where we’ll be. We’ll buy the booze if you bring the quarters.