* Jacksonville vs Pittsburgh Saturday, January 5, 5:00 PM PST Wild Card 2008 The Purists' Battle This is the game that John Madden has been eeeagerly awaiting. A matchup of two classically built, smashmouth NFL franchises in a cold weather playoff game. Pound the rock. Control the line. Stick 'em on D. This is a football game for the NFL purist. Can't wait. Photo via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette......

All this kafuffle over the Patriot's version of sex, lies, and videotape can only remind us of one thing-- the Greatness of the Raidahs. What other football team is so synonymous with cheating? It's part of their legend, their mystique, their je ne sais quoi. Hell, even Lisa Simpson even knows this. Or, as John Madden put it: "everybody says the Raiders cheat...OK, we cheat. So, what are you going to do about it?" ...

We realized that we were living our rock and roll fantasy when we started getting chances to write about zombie movies. (What can we say? We're a simple person, and we have simple needs.) Things got even better when we got to start talking or emailing with directors of said zombie movies -- like Matthew Leutwyler, Bay Area native and director of Dead and Breakfast, a zombie film with musical interludes by Zacharia Selwyn.......

Esseffist is not the biggest football fan in the world, but we definitely love video games. And while many have tried, nobody is taking John Madden Football's spot in the starting lineup. With their release of Madden 2005, Redwood City based Electronic Arts celebrates fifteen years of making the best-selling video game of all time. That's right - last year's version grossed as much sales as the movie Shrek (which was made nearby at Palo Alto's Pacific Data Images), and this year it promises to be even bigger. The Chron gave it the top rating - jumping, clapping dude. Esseffist is looking forward to putting Marcus Tuiasosopo in at quaterback and running the option behind Robert Gallery....