I hear we've matriculated from MySpace to Facebook, right?
Well, screw me. I never got around to creating a MySpace page. Was reminded why today.
Don't tell the teens and the 'tweens - or my wife - but something about the whole deal strikes as, um, ridiculously fraudulent.
Like, for example, the fact that there are exactly 72 profiles using the handle, photos and persona of "Tony Romo".
A little digging and I uncovered that the Cowboys may no longer be America's Team, but, compared to Sunday's foe, they are definitely MySpace's Team.
Of the 72 Romo profiles, most are just losers trollin' for sloppy seconds. (And since you're wondering, yes, I'm going to honor Sean Avery by injecting that phrase into every post the rest of the year.) The one Romo page that claims to be "official" has 303 friends, including Nate Newton, DeMarcus Ware, Darren Woodson, Taylor Swift and some hottie named Chantelle Paige. But no Jessica. Hmm.
Romo's 72 dwarfs Steelers' counterpart Ben Roethlisberger, who has spawned only has 10 wannabe profiles. The most - I say most - official-looking of those actually has 2,255 friends, but none of them remotely recognizable and most appear to be prepared to drink an Iron City sixer before heading off for a double-shift at the rust mill.
At running back, Pittsburgh's Willie Parker actually tops Marion Barber, 12-10. "Parker"'s best site includes - in the "about me" portion - this intro: "what up, i'm willie parker of the steelers." Sold!
Not surprisingly, Terrell Owens' imitators slaughter Hines Ward's, 29-19. While none of Ward's pages look the least bit authentic, T.O.'s "official" page indeed looks official. There's a counter to his Dec. 15 birthday bash at the Gaylord Texan and photos of him with Serena Williams and, for some reason, Sam Cassell. Among T.O.'s eclectic mix of friends: Bill Bellamy and Playboy plamate Shallan Meiers.
Of course the Steelers' No. 1-ranked defense gets the nod over Dallas, with Troy Polamalu prompting 12 copy-cat pages to only two for Ware.
The head coaches - Dallas' Wade Phillips and Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin - tied, 2-2, cementing the Cowboys' comfortable final margin of 115-55. The CSI in me, however, smells a rat, as the two Phillips profiles are a 16-year-old boy and a 34-year-old black dude with a beard, while the two "Mike Tomlin"'s are actually an 18-year-old guy and a 108-year-old woman who claims to have played a guitar solo on stage at Woodstock.
Color me a tad skeptical. - Richie Whitt
