Welcome Back Football

Football !!!!!! Football l!!!!! Football !!!!!! (a choir of angels singing the Hallelujah Chorus in the background) Football is back. Less than 35 hours until the NFL preseason kicks off. Yes I’m getting excited over crappy, boring, meaningless Preseason NFL football. Who cares, it’s football. That’s all I care about. Finally the second best game on the planet (behind my beloved soccer) has returned to the sports landscape after the sports dolbrums that is the end of June and all of July. Summer + Baseball = CRAP. MLB do me a favor. Please go away. I don’t want to hear a peep from you until the playoffs. It’s time for you to return to the back burner where you belong. The best American sport has returned. I love it!!!

The first NFL Live of the season is airing on ESPN as I type. It’s almost enough to bring a tear to my eye. The return of NFL football marks the return of another type of football as well. Fantasy Football!!!! (more angels and singing and all that). Last year was for fun. This season is for real. I’m strapping on the mental and statistical shoulder pads in preparation for war. I WILL NOT end up the league laughing stock again. The fact that I was a rookie last year won’t wash this season. I’m a veteran now. I’ve been through the war and have re-enlisted for another tour of duty. THIS IS WAR!!! It’s geeky, washed up, sports geek war but it’s WAR none the less. I’ve got less than a month to finish my preparations for an incredible draft and total league domination. I can hear my opponents (formerly known as friends) shaking in their boots from here. We’re shooting for the playoffs this year. Nah, bump that. I’m talking Fantasy Super Bowl baby!!!! (intense, driving, war like music from Gladiator Soundtrack playing in the background) Lastly don’t sleep on my Dallas Cowboys this season. Sure I could probably start at quarterback for them easily beating out the scrubs they’ve got in that position right now but my boys are gonna be good this year. Maybe playoffs good. Let’s be realistic. The Tuna (Bill Parcells) is a great coach but he ain’t no miracle worker. But they will be much, much better this season. I say they just miss the playoffs by a game or two. Football !!!! Football !!!! Football !!!! (angelic Hallelujah Chorus mixed with percussive Gladiator Soundtrack) Welcome back football. All hail crappy preseason football! Down with baseball. Go Yankees!

See Seabiscuit

I had the pleasure of seeing Seabiscuit today. I payed matinee price but after seeing it I would have gladly paid full price or even more. Seabiscuit is an impressive, inspiring movie. Great movie. There will definitely be Oscar nominations in its future and maybe even a win or two. The story is triumphant and superbly adapted to the screen. See Seabiscuit. It’s well worth however much you pay for the ticket. The theater was about 2/3 full which surprised me. What surprised me even more was the amount of older adults there. When I say older adults I’m talking about senior citizens. Many left the theater with joyous smiles on their faces and I got the sense that the movie helped them relive an uplifting time from their youth through the mid to late 30′s and early 40′s. That’s what movies, in their purest form, should do.

I’ve always been fascinated by horses. They’re such awesome animals. If I ever get rich or stay single long enough to where my salary way out paces my expenses (a scary thought but sadly more likely than me ever getting rich) I think I’d like to buy a horse. Not a thoroughbred race horse. Just a plain, old, regular horse. One that I can trot around a field and occasionally take off on at a gallop. The prospect of being able to drive out to the stables in the country, saddle up my horse and ride a couple of times week is thrilling. Well we can dream. Can’t we? I’ve ridden a horse on two occasions that I can remember. Both were in Turkey. One ride was especially scary. The horse I was riding nearly dumped over the side of a cliff. She was a temperamental old nag but we found out after the ride that she was pregnant so I’ll give her a pass. She scared the piss out of a scrawny 9 year old (that would be me) but I’ll give her a pass. The other experience was less memorable but just as fun. I’ve been hooked on horses ever since.

No I Didn’t Blow Away

Long time, no blog. It’s summer time. Could you expect anything less? I’ve had more pressing things to do. Namely sleeping and going to work. This week I added a third thing to that list. Trying not to get blown away by 100mph straight line winds. The worst storm in recent memory passed through Memphis Tuesday morning. When I went to work at 12 am the sky was clear. The streets were calm. Everything was normal. When I was finally allowed to leave work later that morning it looked like a war zone outside. I’ve never seen trees snapped like toothpicks before. The light poles in my apartment complex were laying on their sides like broken straws. It was totally surreal. Power was knocked out all over the city. Our power got turned back on Wednesday night. We were lucky. There are still over 170,000 households and businesses without power in the Memphis Metro area. For whom it may concern, Graceland escaped the storm unharmed. The storm crossed the river well north of the beloved Elvis shrine. Beale street wasn’t so lucky. A lot of the businesses there are damaged. Some of the buildings will probably have to be condemned. Then, to add insult to injury, the area had to be evacuated because the 3 large cranes positioned downtown for the construction of the Fed Ex Forum (Future Home of the Memphis Grizzlies) are listing so far to the side that they’re threatening to fall and take out the entire Beale street area. The damage estimates have topped $40 million and counting. Even though power is slowly being brought back online city wide, the majority of the traffic lights are still not working making driving even more of a bear. So there you have it. Your basic uneventful week. You never realize how important electricity is until you don’t have any for almost 2 days. The peace and quiet was nice though. Ever notice that even when everything is off you can still hear the hum of electricity coursing through the walls? Not this week. This it was completely quiet. Silence. That’s the only positive from this trying ordeal. The silence was nice but I think I’ll take my cable TV, cable broadband, AC, alarm clock (well maybe not that annoying thing), stereo, and computer over the silence any day. Weeks like this make you realize how truly hopeless and powerless we are even with all of our technology and advances in the face of the forces of nature. Well that’s all for now. Don’t know when I’ll check in next. Gotta get some sleep so I can get up and lose a golf tournament in the morning.