I always feel a little guilty about 9/11, because of my initial ignorance of the situation. I was a freshman in college, living in the dorms, and routinely slept until the last possible minute until class started. Occasionally I would wake up earlier, roll over to Paul's side of the bed and ask him if he wanted to get any breakfast at Wilkerson, but mostly I just went straight to class.
And so it was that morning. I went directly to class without even 5 minutes of SportsCenter, and our lecture hall was buzzing as I took my seat. The professor showed up looking disheveled, said something quickly to the effect of "Well, I suppose by now you've heard. Obviously, class is cancelled. I suggest you all get back and turn on the news." And that was it. No details. So immediately I was excited-- I never imagined it was anything serious. I practically skipped back to Walsh Hall. My day was now wide-open, and full of options. When I crack my first beer this morning, do I put in Office Space or Big Lebowski? Do I go back to bed, and wait until lunch to start drinking? Is the slushee machine up and running this early in the morning? I could go for a Slodka. How quickly could we organize an early-afternoon game of beer pong?
It wasn't until I got back to my room and actually turned on the TV that I found out what was up (and I probably would've been a couple more hours behind if I hadn't turned on ESPN before putting in a DVD.) What was worse was that Paul's dad, Rod the Bod, was scheduled to be at the Pentagon that day. Everything turned out OK (for Rod) but it was a crazy, awful day for New Yorkers and our country. So every time I think of 9/11, I have that quick little twinge of guilt, thinking of the 15-minute span where all I cared about was having a day off of classes, not even giving a second thought to the possibility that there was a very serious reason why we received the day off.
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Because you care so much, I'm pretty happy with my fantasy team. I wasn't going to play this year because all I do is bitch about my bad luck every year and never enjoy wins, but I got talked into it and so here we are. I got Jamaal Charles and LeGarrette Blount at RB; Megatron, Steve Johnson, and Manningham at WR; Big Ben fell into my lap; and I've got some good trade bait on the bench (Stafford, Julio Jones, and once Arian Foster gets hurt for good, I'm gonna hold Bergman over the barrel to get Ben Tate from me .) So yayyyy Fantasy Football!
But what I really care about is the gambling. After the Packers made me look awesome last year, covered a game for me in preseason, and again covered on Thursday night, they are now officially in "shoot 'til you miss" mode for me. My over/under bets for wins this year look like this:
Steelers over 10.5- I'm hoping to cover this by week 14 with their easy schedule.
Eagles over 10.5- one of those that might not be a good money bet, but I don't care. They have too much talent for this not to happen. If they don't get to 11 wins in that division, I'll just tip my hat to the Gambling Gods.
Dolphins under 7.5- I also hope to cover this by week 14.
Buccaneers under 8.5- I feel worse about this bet every day. If I had the option to cancel this bet I think I would take it. I got hung up on their tougher schedule and tougher division this year, but failed to take into account a bunch of young guys all getting one year better.
Giants under 9.5- probably my lock of the year.
Rams over 7.5- I've always hated the Rams since they beat my Titans in the Super Bowl, but I'm all in on them this year. My Sam Bradford Fathead is currently being shipped.
Side note: back when Bradford played at Oklahoma, Lane once described him as "a slightly retarded-looking version of Bergman." I laughed for about 20 minutes at that, and ever since, have struggled to take him seriously (Bradford, not Lane. I've never taken Lane seriously.) Little scary to be financially invested in a guy who looks like Bergman after about 18 beers and two concussions.
And for those of you who know Bergman, the comparison is pretty true.
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A couple months ago we went to a Cubs/Royals game, and while tailgating we discovered a stranger we quickly dubbed "Chicago Jim." Nelle and Meg were the first ones to spot him, and when they pointed him out to me, I literally did a triple take. It was creepy. So we made a bunch of jokes about it, blah blah blah, then when we saw him again after the game, and were drunk enough to approach him, I had to take a picture with him. I finally saw the picture for the first time last week, and I have to admit I'm a little disappointed. I think you have to see him from the side or something, to really capture the full Chicago Jim effect, with our bent Chris Dudley noses and all (plus this picture will be smaller because of blogger, it looks better on Facebook when it's blown-up.) And it's not just the booze talking, we saw him right when we were setting up the tailgate, so we were sober. Without further ado, Chicago Jim and I:
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Now I'm going to watch football for the next ten hours. Does it get any better than NFL opening Sunday?
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