Blaine's not popular after insulting Wilmington booth and slapping Picks rivals

Blaine spent the weekend rubbing people the wrong way, first by offending the Wilmington football announcers Friday night and then rudely swiping first place from Nicki and Trevor in the Sunday Football Picks.  He is anything but Mr. Manners.

Blaine's 10-3 record in Week 5 gave him sole possession of first place, two games ahead of QT Pie and four games in front of Nicki, Trevor and Mark.  Picks members are surprised to have Blaine treating them so harshly because it's been five years since the veteran bumped them out of the top spot.

The last time Blaine was alone in first place was Week 6 of the 2000 season.  That's when Bill Clinton was U.S. president, there was no such thing as an iPod, Molly and Jazzy hadn't been born, millionaire Richard Hatch was the only Survivor winner, no one could imagine a serious terrorist attack, and Michael Jordan had yet to play for the Washington Wizards.

Blaine's rudeness in the Picks on Sunday was preceded by him insulting the Wilmington faithful in the press box during the Wildcats' 42-0 thumping of Sandwich.  He assumed school officials were unaware that head coach Jeff Reents was about to earn his 100th career victory.  Blaine confidently stepped inside the press box to inform the Wildcat diehards of the news, and he was greeted quite sarcastically.  It was like interrupting Ozzie Guillen's playoff party to tell him that his White Sox qualified for the American League Championship Series.

"Really?  None of us knew that.  Wow, thanks for the newsflash," one of the guys said.

Obviously the entire town knew about the 100th victory.  When Blaine sheepishly sat back down, he saw big balloons on the sideline in the shape of a 1 and a 0 and another 0.  Then he noticed a banner facing the field congratulating coach Reents, and the local newspaper (purchased after the game) had an article about Wilmington anticipating the 100th win that week.  Only a boneheaded out-of-towner thinking he was a master statistician could have made such an embarrassing blunder.  D'oh!

Blaine's decline in popularity after both the Wilmington game and his Picks success unfortunately picked up steam Monday night.  He was anything but popular with his wife when he called her away from the office because his truck stopped running as he exited Interstate 355 at Lake Street coming home from work.  The problem?  He ran out of gas.  "Are you kidding me?  This from the guy who doesn't like to see gas tanks fall below half?!?!" QT exclaimed, a bit perturbed.