ESPN may be trying to make me hate college football, a Greek recap and Australia not exactly going the extra mile for its doctors

- On last night’s Greek, it was time for the dads to invade. With Zeta Beta holding its annual Father/Daughter weekend, everyone’s dad was on hand. That meant Casey and Rusty’s dad Russell making a return visit to Cyprus Rhodes, Ashleigh’s dad showing up to see his girl, Rebecca’s dad (disgraced U.S. senator) Ken coming straight from his stint in rehab to be a part of things and even the dad of Rusty’s girlfriend Jordan, Jack Reed, coming to make life miserable for Rusty. For starters, Jack thinks that Rusty is actually Jordan’s football-playing ex-boyfriend from last season, Andy, when he and Rusty bump into each other outside the hotel where all of the visiting dads are staying. Secondly, Jack and Rusty don’t exactly hit it off at the ZBZ Father/Daughter barbecue, where Jack seems to like Rusty’s pal Calvin better and spends most of the time talking sports with Calvin. Things go from worse to worst when Jack walks in on Jordan and Rusty in her dorm room as they’re about to have sex. That leads to a heated showdown the next day in the annual ZBZ dads vs. fraternity guys flag football game. The frat guys have a tradition of throwing the game and allowing the dads to win, but when the dads can’t seem to get along and the trash talking gets out of hand, Rusty reaches his breaking point. After fumbling the ball to Jack and seeing him take off down the field, talking smack along the way, Rusty gives chase and brings Jack down with a vicious tackle that injures Jack’s bad back. The injury brings the game to an abrupt end and clearly does nothing to improve the relationship between Rusty and Jack. Fortunately for Rusty, Jordan isn’t that upset by the tackle and Jack isn't seriously injured, so all is well. Still, Rusty and Jordan decide to hold off on sleeping together until Jack is safely out of town and has no chance of walking in on them. Ironically, Cappie warned Rusty before Jordan’s dad even arrived on campus that things would be awkward at best, but Cappie had his own issues to deal with. Faced with the fact that he had missed his chance to get back together with Casey, he threw himself into other pursuits - tennis, a book club with Dale - to occupy himself. Then along came Mary Elise, a girl who had set up a table on campus to promote her cause - Catholicism. With Dale still feeling extremely guilty about having sex with landlady Sheila and not finding absolution from his own religious beliefs, he too is enamored with Mary Elise, just for very different reasons than Cappie. After both of them agree to attend mass with her, again for very different reasons, and argue over who should get to hang out with her for the rest of the night, Cappie prevails and ends up hooking up with Mary Elise. Their fling lasts all of a day, as Cappie becomes too clingy and leaves her five messages by the time he sees or on campus the next day. Dale also calls Mary Elise multiple times asking for help with his own crisis of faith and she takes offense at his confrontational tone. In the end, she blows off both Cappie and Dale, leaving them to their book club and leaving both in their respective funks. But the true fireworks of the episode came at the ZBZ house, where the fallout from Rebecca kissing Ashleigh’s boyfriend Fisher at the Kappa Tau “End of the World” party in last season’s finale. When Casey puts two and two together from an awkward breakfast encounter between Fisher and Rebecca and confronts them, they admit to the kiss but brush it aside as a drunken mistake. Casey decides not to tell Ashleigh and tells Rebecca that she’ll have to trust her to keep that promise - as long as the kiss is a one-time deal. Having to trust Casey to keep her secret proves too much for Rebecca, so she comes clean with Ashleigh and then rats out Casey for not telling Ashleigh in an attempt to shift some of Ashleigh’s anger off of her. In the ultimate case of bad timing, the ZBZ dads arrive right at the moment this all goes down and the tension is obvious. Still, the girls sweep things under the rug and choose to silently hate one another for the time being. The anger bubbles over at the barbecue, where Ashleigh’s rage comes out while the sisters sing the ZBZ welcome song for their dads. When she inserts some choice new lyrics, Rebecca takes offense, Casey chimes in and all three girls scrap with one another. The barbecue ends with a bang and all three girls sit down with their dads to talk things over. That talk doesn’t go well either, with all three girls storming off and all three dads ending up arguing about whose daughter was to blame. That dissent among the dads continues into the aforementioned flag football game and beyond, but ultimately it’s Casey who confronts the dads and tells them to apologize and make nice during the post-game party at Dobler’s. She also manages to mend fences with BFF Ashleigh at the game, apologizing for not telling her about the kiss. The two of them hug it out and then agree to turn their combined hatred on Rebecca. Ashleigh also must decide what to do about Fisher and her choice is to break up with him. He pleads for a second chance, but she sticks to her policy that if someone lies to or cheats on her, it’s over. All in all, a funny episode and a good one, a solid second week for the season……..

- I don’t know what the true story is when it comes to San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman and his girlfriend, reality TV freak/loser Tila Tequila, I only know what I want to be true. And what I want to be true is that Merriman choked and assaulted Tequila……but not for the reasons you might think. I’m not a hater who wants to see bad things happen to Merriman and for him to go to jail. No, I’m merely saying that it’s about time that someone, somewhere choked and assaulted a reality TV star for what they continue to do to all of us. These no-talent freaks descend on L.A. and/or any network with reality shows like a freaking plague, being the attention whores they are and having no actual talent to play other than making a fool of themselves for money on a reality show. Tila Tequila, real name Tila Nguyen, is a prime example of what I’m talking about here. This chick basically carved out her reputation by putting up skanky pictures and content on MySpace (still the world’s biggest haven for pedophiles and freaks) and managed to parlay that “fame” into a bisexual reality dating show on MTV. That must have caught Merriman’s eye, because the two of them are now (or were?) dating and that’s how the alleged incident occurred. Merriman was arrested early Sunday on suspicion of choking and restraining Nguyen after she told sheriff’s deputies she had been choked and physically restrained by Merriman when she attempted to leave his residence. Nguyen signed a citizen's arrest at the scene, and Merriman was taken into custody on suspicion of battery and false imprisonment. He contends that there were a dozen other people at his house at the time of the incident that that "witness after witness after witness will back up his story 100 percent." His story is that Nguyen was "extremely intoxicated and inebriated" and that Merriman tried to make arrangements for her to get home safely rather that drive herself. Her claim that Merriman roughed her up seems dubious given the fact that deputies didn't see any physical injuries on Nguyen. She also contends that despite her fake last name, she’s actually allergic to alcohol, a fact that would appear to be in dispute because those same deputies reported that she was in fact under the influence of alcohol when they spoke with her. Nguyen’s final ploy was to allege that she saw something in Merriman’s house that she should not have seen and that’s why he was attempting to keep her from leaving. Like I said at the top, violence against women isn't cool, but reality TV contestants are exempt from that rule. By that, I mean both male and female reality TV contestants, because someone needs to smack these people around and pay them back for the suffering and crappy television they’ve subjected us all to. There’s a line not to be crossed, for sure - no causing of permanent injuries and/or death - but beyond that, teach these losers a lesson and maybe we’ll start seeing less of these garbage reality shows on our airwaves……..

- Quite the sophisticated, professional approach your government is taking to helping its medical professionals do their job, Australia. With the omnipresent problem of doctors and surgeons burning the candle at both ends and wearing down physically and mentally, Queensland Health's new doctor fatigue policy includes very thoughtful, detailed recommendation that sleep-deprived doctors down six cups of coffee a day to keep themselves going strong. The policy, currently being rolled out in public hospitals, is designed to address the issue of surgeons and medics committing exhaustion-induced errors that kill or harm patients during "on-call" shifts of 30 to 80 hours. The obvious suggestion would be to bring in more staff to handle patients so that people aren’t working "on-call" shifts of 30 to 80 hours, but Queensland Health doesn’t seem to think that’s an option. QH’s Fatigue Risk Management System claims "solutions such as 'we need more staff' might not be achievable or effective in managing a fatigue risk." Not effective? Don’t confuse you being too cheap to hire more doctors with having more qualified doctors on staff not helping to alleviate fatigue and fatigue-induced errors. Recommending the "strategic use of caffeine . . . to be beneficial" for doctors working ubar-long shifts isn't groundbreaking, helpful analysis; it’s a bad idea that any Starbucks barista could come up with. But hey, at least QH isn't being unreasonable about expecting doctors, many of whom might not like coffee, to chug down five or six cups. To that end, QH proposes caffeine tablets or energy drinks as alternatives. Great, so some surgeon peaking on four Red Bulls and running on no sleep is who you’re counting on to keep you alive in an emergency, super. “Compared with other psychoactive drugs, for example, modafinil (a prescription-only narcolepsy treatment), caffeine is supported in its use as it is more readily available and less expensive," the 102-page report says. Critics of this plan (and with such a stellar plan, who could be critical?) point out that this practice could a) turn doctors into caffeine addicts and b) result in heart palpitations, raised blood pressure, dizziness, anxiety and hand tremors, all of which are distinct possibilities with people consuming 400mg of caffeine a day. Call me cynical, but those are attributes I really wouldn’t want in any doctor or surgeon I was seeing. But pass the Foldger’s, Red Bulls and Five Hour Energy, Aussie docs, because that looks like the only help you’re going to be getting……….

- A question for ESPN: Are you actively trying to make me hate college football? Because if you keep tethering the millstone that is country music to one of my favorite sports, that’s a distinct possibility. For three years now, the Worldwide Leader has used a song by country music knobs Big & Rich (not sure which of them is which, but I know that they both suck) as the intro music for one of the best sports programs on television, College Game Day. I’ve managed to live with that because I enjoy the show so much and can focus on all of the pretty pictures and videos playing on my television screen while this horrid, ear-assaulting music plays. However, even as a (not-so) silently root for ESPN to come to its senses and pick a song from a musical genre that doesn’t blow, what does the network do but heap another steaming, stinking pile of the monkey crap that is country music onto my college football-watching experience. Now because I don’t know country music at all and make it a point not to, I could be mistaken on the identity of the artist I’m about to insult, but that’s irrelevant. I think it was Kenny Chesney abusing my poor ears with his twangy garbage during games all weekend long, as ESPN seemed intent on shoving his music into a bunch of video highlight packages and ruining what were otherwise great games. The only reason I think it was Chesney is because dude was a guest on College Game Day last year and I’m pretty sure I recognized him. So unless ESPN is planning on completely ruining what just might be the second-best sport in America by associating it with what is unquestionably the second-worst music genre in the world (disco still in the lead there), I feel compelled to warn the Worldwide Leader to ditch the country music and save us all. Oh, and while we’re here, I have another note to mention from a weekend of watching college football: Jim Breuer is a) not funny, b) super, super annoying, c) irritating enough for me to want to drop whatever I’m doing, go find him and punch him repeatedly in the groin until he passes out. I mention this because Pizza Hut inexplicably picked this ass hat for its newest commercial and I think I retroactively threw up every piece of Pizza Hut pizza I’ve ever eaten as a result. Not sure who told Breuer that he’s funny, but that person either hates him or has no sense of comedy. So while it is virtually impossible for anyone or anything to ruin a great first weekend of college football, big ups to ESPN, country music and Jim Breuer for trying……….

- I really don’t think this is the way you want your marriage proposal to go when you sit down and plot out the most romantic way to ask for your girlfriend’s hand in marriage. An unidentified couple in the rural town of Cabin John, Md. had their special day marred when, shortly after the proposal, the newly-engaged woman “lost her footing and fell onto a large, jagged rock,” according to Montgomery Co. Fire & Rescue Captain Derrell Walker. Ouch. That certainly is not a good way to start off your engagement, but I think we all know the sort of a danger a person willingly puts themselves in when they go hiking along the Billy Goat Trail beside the Potomac River on a Sunday afternoon, don’t we? So while this couple had the exciting chance to call everyone they know and tell them about the engagement, doing so from the back of an ambulance or the emergency room probably put a damper on things. But hey, they did score a ride in a U.S. Park Police Helicopter, so big thumbs up there. Also, the injuries sustained by the woman were considered serious but non-life threatening, so this story should have a happy ending after all. She was been treated and released from the hospital, but there is no word so far on whether the couple has set a date for the wedding. While we don’t know that, I think we all know places they should avoid for their honeymoon, namely any and all national parks and anywhere with sharp, jagged rocks and steep cliffs………