Category: Uncategorized (Page 26 of 34)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one:

I’m on the bus this morning, with my new blondish copper highlights, my fake Kate Spade Bag, and my 4 inch heels (and yes, those things do hurt by the end of the day), and I realize that Boston is much like Long Island when it comes to unexpected snow: it freaks the heck out. Granted, the inch this morning surprised even me, but still–I expected more from Bostonians. So I’m on the bus, and I realize that this is going to be a long ride from Chestnut Hill, so I take out my new copy of Moneyball (book one on the “Cram in a bunch of reading for fun over three weeks inbetween semesters” list).

I look up, and a sixty something guy is staring incredulously at me. And it wasn’t one of those sixty year olds up here in Boston that think that they actually have a chance with a twenty something girl on public transportation, but someone who honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading.

I let it go, probably because of what had happened the night before when I went to buy the book. I knew exactly what I was looking for, promptly found it and went to the cashier. “Moneyball! One of our biggest sellers for the holidays!” he exclaimed.

“I can imagine. I’ve read so much about it.” I acknowledged.

The cashier nodded. “It does make a great gift.”

I took out my wallet. “Oh, it’s not a gift. It’s for me.”

I looked up to see the now-silent cashier for a second and looked confused. “Oh…well, um…..shouldn’t you be uh, studying or something?”

“Well, I’ll start it after I finish my law paper.”

“Oh…well, yeah. I’m sure you’ll….uh, like the book.”

Can’t a girl just read her Moneyball in peace? I have three weeks to make it through that, False Start: How the New Browns Were Doomed to Fail, When the Tuna Went Down to Texas, and Committed: Confessions of a Fantasy Football Junkie.

Speaking of fantasy football junkies, I think I’m heading into the week where injuries are going to catch up with me. In the MCFFLOAT I have four wide recievers. Three of them are listed as questionable this week. And of course this is the week of the playoffs where I go up against the number one seed, the guy who never loses. I had such hope until I realized that I was playing him in this round. I mean, I made it into the championship bracket! There was no place else to go but up! I mean, if there was a Cinderella fantasy football story, I could of been it! (Hey, it was established earlier that I can handle uncomfortable shoes.)

And of course, he wins his matchup and there I go. It’s midnight. Fantasy Football Cinderella is going to go back to lusting after Tom Brady and Kyle Boller, and sit quietly on her vast football knowledge until next year. Sigh…it was a nice run while it lasted.

Of course, I’m totally omitting the fact that I won the regular season for my other league, where I feel like the only people still really paying attention anymore would be me and my old boss Jeff. That was not a Cinderella story, for that league is made up of Binghamton-ites who know I know football, and who reside in a part of the state where football isn’t as crucial to everyday life as it is up here in Massachusetts. (Baseball is their water, football is their bread. Take away both, and I’m convinced Massachusetts residents would wither like the fifty-cent roses we used to have at the flower store where I worked over the summer.) So really, it’s been a really successful season in both leagues, and I shouldn’t be lamenting.

Okay, I’m half awake at this point, so quick picks before I slump over into my computer and the rest of this entry becomes a couple of paragraphs typed by my nose. (I’d attempt some spreads, but I’m still glazed over from the law paper I finished writing this afternoon.)

Pittsburgh over the Giants–Thanks a lot, Eli. Because of your incompetence in even handing off the ball to Barber or tossing it to Shockey, my student worker/fantasy football confidant Chris fell to second in his league for the first time all season. Way to scar a kid going into finals.

Washington over San Fran–I feel like the words of the teeny-popper of the moment, JoJo, best describe my feelings towards Erickson and the entire front office staff of the 49ers. And I quote:

“Get out!

Leave!

Right now!

It’s too late, and I can’t wait

For you to be gone.”

Such depth! I feel like so much work went into crafting this wonderfully articulate song. My brain is working overtime trying to figure out all the hidden meanings of this song.

But really, all sarcasticness aside, someone needs to schedule an intervention for this team. It’s that bad.

Carolina over Atlanta–I honestly have no idea. I’m having a football pizza party Saturday night, and the lone invitee-who-is-not-my-roommate e-mailed and said, “I wish there were better games to watch. I don’t care about the NFC.” But it’s just the novelty of NFL on a Saturday that this party is built around, so it’ll work.

Houston over Chicago

Buffalo over Cincinnati–Of course the Bills go on this streak when I don’t live in New York State. Gotta love it. To think I had written them off…but then again, we’re finally in a playoff race, meaning we’ll collapse horribly, giving all of Western New Yorkers a pitiful end to their holiday season. Happy Holidays, Bills fans! We’re the new Red Sox fans of the world, except at least the Red Sox had some World Series already stashed in there. Bills fans aren’t having a bad century, they’re having a hurtful existance.

Minnesota over Detroit

San Diego over Cleveland–Excuse me, but I’m noticing that a certain team may be doing a bit better now that a certain QB is out for the season. Never mind that it happened to coinside with the firing of a troubled coach. I’d just thought it needed to be put out there.

Jets over Seattle

Philadephia over Dallas–Does anyone call out, “Go ‘Cuse!” at the tv screen when McNabb does something great? Is it just me and the Western New Yorkness?

Denver over Kansas City–Fun game Monday night by the Chiefs. I didn’t get to see it, but listened to it over the radio. Of course I miss all the offensive funhouses. Of course.

St. Louis over Arizona–Can this game just not count? I swear, I’d rather watch San Fran.

Tampa Bay over New Orleans

Green Bay over Jacksonville–Everyone says next year is the year for the Jags. But didn’t they say that last year too?

Oakland over Tennessee

Indianapolis over Baltimore–I haven’t spoken to my father about this game, but I can hear him right now, “Over course Indy will win. They’ll rig it if they have to. They want him to get that record on national TV. It’s the same reason Favre was scheduled on Monday Night Football at his 200th start.”

New England over Miami–Of course, my first homeworkless Monday night, and I get this game. If the Bills (or at least the Western NY media) danced around the idea of Marv Levy returning when Gregg Williams was done with, then I swear in the next week, if Saban doesn’t sign, then you’re going to hear the Don Shula rumor. And not his younger son either.

Last week: 13-3. This week: Probably worse.

According to several columnists (cough, cough, Bill Simmons, cough, cough), women DO NOT PICK FOOTBALL GAMES. We don’t do spreads, unless they’re of food, and we don’t play fantasy, unless you’re talking about our fantasies of some hot guy.

By those two lines, you should be highly amused. I’m a woman. And last time I checked, I kick butt in most things football on a regular basis. Of course, I’m writing this the day before I enter fantasy football playoffs, and this could all blow up in my face. But I met my goals for my first season playing fantasy football, which was were to make the playoffs in both leagues. I knew that two things I would struggle with this season would be defenses and not being stupid when it came to trading–and trust me, those things bit me in the butt several times. My real concern is with my picks and fantasy–I feel as if my picking skills have gone downhill while playing fantasy football. In fact, I’ve abandoned picking all together for a large portion of the season, due to the fact that I haven’t had time to work on my fantasy team and do picks.

Well, it’s time to get back on the horse. Here we go, Week 14.

Atlanta over Oakland— If I have to sit through another profile of Michael Vick where they compare him to Steve Young, I think I’ll throw my Ithaca throw pillow through the TV instead of just at it (I’ll just have to throw with my left arm). Yeah, that was cool 2 years ago. It was new 2 years ago. But yeah, um, it’s no longer anything we’ve never heard. Plus, now that Vick has been in the league a few years, I think it’s clear that Young and Vick will have far different careers. Despite his inconsistencies, Vick has been more successful in his four years (well, actually really three, given his injury) than Young was in his first few years with the Bucs. I’m not at all suggesting that Vick will have the better career, but he was more successful at the start than Young. In addition, I would like to say that Young knew how to run a shotgun before he left college, unlike Vick.

Baltimore over the Giants–The weekly conversation between me and one of my student workers goes something like this:

Chris: “This is killing me. Shockey got nothing yesterday. I’m not starting him next week.”

Me: “At some point, when will they realize that even Warner is better than Manning? Even a concussed Warner is better than Manning.”

And then we go on for about ten minutes about how much Manning stinks.

Buffalo over Cleveland–Me, pick against my Bills? Pick against McGahee? Pick against their defense? Pick against any team playing against a team sometimes led by Jeff Garcia? And can I just say that during break, I plan on reading False Start, a book about the reincarnation of the Browns that Peter King mentioned in his Monday Morning Quarterback column last week. I’m interested in reading about Carmen Policy, who I always considered highly talented, and what happened to make him ineffective in Cleveland. On a lighter note, has anyplace in either San Fran or Cleveland played off the whole “Cherry Garcia” idea yet? I mean, up here in Boston, J.P. Licks still has “Cherry Garciaparra” ice cream. Given all the football food take offs the nation has endurred over the years, it would only be appropriate. Nothing will ever top Flutie Flakes. On a somewhat related note, I feel that David Ortiz needs to have a food named after him. Out of all the athletes out there right now, I think he is just due for one.

Dallas over New Orleans–Disciplined inconsistency versus wild, unharnessed inconsistency. Fun times. When the Tuna Went Down to Texas is also on my “to-read” list for break.

Indianapolis over Houston–Uh, yeah. I don’t really like any of the Mannings. Whiney daddy’s boys. Except I do love the Mastercard commercial with Peyton cheering for the accountants and deli people. Gosh darn cute right there (the commercial, not Peyton…except at the end when he looks at his hand and says, “I’m never gonna wash my hand again!” That’s a tad on the endearing side. And then I remember it’s a Manning, so I scowl.)

Jacksonville over Chicago–Chicago is like white toast. Bland, underachieving, can sometimes achieve greatness with certain pinch players, like peanut butter (or Chad Hutchinson), but overall, you always want to like it but it falls way below your expectations.

Minnesota over Seattle–Both teams will fight hard, but Culpepper is a tour de force of I-should-of-been-a-basketball-player quarterbacking, and will win in the end.

New England over Cincinnati–The Pats will not fall behind the Steelers. They won’t let themselves.

Denver over Miami–Or at least I’d hope so. But with Denver lately, I feel like you never know. I also haven’t seen too much of them this season. On the “not seeing them” note, should getting NFL Sunday Ticket be one of my goals for 2005? I mean, getting NFL Network was one of my goals for 2004, so it would logically be the next step.

Pittsburgh over the Jets–Deep down inside, the Jets stink. Well, except for Curtis Martin. I want a 0-4 rest of the season for the Jets. That would make us Bills fans very happy.

Green Bay over Detroit–I keep tearing up whenever I see Brett Favre nowadays, and I sob whenever I read anything about him. Football isn’t supposed to make me cry, but I am a girl. Some girls cry at movies, but I don’t get the chance to see enough of those, so I cry at sports instead. I just bawled at the Sports Illustrated piece naming the Red Sox as Sportsmen of the Year. Bawled. I was on the bus. ON THE BUS. And I cried. I must say that any future children I may have are going to be enamored with my Red Sox World Series article collection and will hopefully think that I’m the coolest mom ever. Or they’ll bawl when they read half the articles.

Arizona over San Fran–Speaking of bawling, I’m tearing up right now just writing the words “San Fran.” Why are they sooooooo baaaaaaaadddddd?! (Tear, tear, sniffle, sniffle.)

Carolina over St. Louis–In case you’ve missed it, Mike Martz is nuts. Crazy. Incomprehensible. But then again, he is effective every fourth game or so. Maybe he’ll read the clock this week. We’ll see.

San Diego over Tampa Bay–SAN DIEGO, Super Chargers, SAN DI-E-GO! Come on guys, steamroll the rest of the season and get Flutie a Super Bowl ring. Tell me that wouldn’t be the story of the year. Tell me that Schottenheimer hasn’t proved his worth as an NFL coach with this year’s job. He was pretty good with the Chiefs back in the day, but this is just something else.

Philadelphia over Washington–I’ll love you, McNabb, if you can help me win fantasy football again this week, and the same goes to you, T.O. If you manage an amazing game, T.O., I’ll forgive your participation in stunts that give those non-sports-likers around me a reason to nag me about watching professional sports.

Kansas City over Tennessee–A game with teams so bad that it’s gonna be good.

Okay, we’ll see if women can pick football games now.

The only thing I really have to venture fully into is spreads. I’ve done spreads before, but not so much this season. After finals are done (aka, next week), I’m going to pick with spreads. Watch out, Kat has free time! But at this point it’s 1:30am, I’m a zombie, my hands feel like lead and my conflict resolution paper is sick of being ignored, so I should do something other than writing an entry. I will return later in the week with more fun procrastination reading for you all, so don’t worry.

I give you an unprecedented look into my personal journal. I know, I know. It is nary a time that a girl lets anyone read her personal journal. However, I want to let everyone know how sad my life has become, thus I give you last night’s entry in it’s entirety:

“11/6/04

So here’s my question. I’m reading Sports Illustrated right now before bed, and I’m reading about Ben Rothlisberger (who isn’t the greatest looking QB, but he’s not that bad.) What would of happened with him had Mularkey still had been the Steelers’ offensive coordinator? Would Mularkey draft Rothlisberger? I think so. Would he be as successful under Mularkey? I don’t think so…but then again, isn’t Rothlisberger pretty mobile and good at thinking on the fly while Bledsoe isn’t anymore?”

That was my journal entry. That is not a rare journal entry for me. I remember one journal entry from last year that asked if anyone else besides me was weirded out by the fact that Billick and Belichick have similar names and if you squint or look really really quickly, they kind of look the same, but not really.

Yeah.

I have no life.

And I will not be getting one anytime soon. I just spent all weekend at a campus activities conference in Marlboro, MA. Now, these gatherings are filled with colleges the size of a small suburban high school with more corn stalks around them than students. These students and advisors want to attract talent to come perform at their school, and a lot of the time, because of their location, their only option is to hire smaller acts through campus promoters, who in turn, feature their top acts at this conference.

Then you have us, Boston University. Promoters saw my polo shirt and literally dragged me by my sleeve over to their booths, trampling over some poor student chair from Tiny Little New England College to stuff my arms with their promotional materials. “Boston University! We love you. Let me give you this DVD of my new band/comedian/really-bad-hypnotist.” (I hate hypnotists.) I’m like, “Uh, sure, okay.” The double-edged sword of working for a name school: everyone wants you. And when I say everyone, I mean promoters. Not men. Unfortunately.

Speaking of men, I’m going to make another plea to the male population of Boston: I’m very fun to watch football with, thus why you should date me. Example: they just showed a clip of the Broncos-Texans game, and the touchdown by Kyle Johnson where he finished it off with a little Western-like gallop jig. I turned to Caitlin, and rather dryly commented, “Ride ’em cowboy. Yee-haw.”

These end-zone dances are getting a bit…elaborate? I admit to having one of the primary offenders, Terell Owens as the key to both of my fantasy football teams. I also admit that end-zone dances don’t phase me or make me outraged, but that is probably because I’m of the generation who grew up with “Prime Time” in his…well, prime. My sister, as a little kid, thought Deion Sanders was cool because he danced. Back in 1995, when she was 8 and I was 13, we used to emulate the Deion dance–hop ball change to one side, hop ball change to the other.

Now on a completely unrelated note: They just showed clips from the Seahawks-Niners game (which the poor poor desolate Niners lost), and Greg Gumbel just commented, “Shawn Alexander had another awesome day.” Having a “I-need-to-take-a-month-off-and-sleep-to-recover-from-the-past-five-years” moment and not recalling if I had him on one of my fantasy teams, I wondered aloud, “Am I sitting on Shawn Alexander?” Caitlin turned to me and said, “Ummm….” I looked at her worried face and calmed her, “On my fantasy team.” Caitlin sighed. “Oh…I was going to say you’ve really lost it because you’re sitting on the couch.” (I didn’t have Shawn Alexander, I had Stephen Alexander of the Lions.)

Okay, so I was wrong about my statements earlier in the season where I said that Doug Flutie should start over Drew Brees, and that the Chargers will never be super again. Um…they’re proving me wrong on a weekly basis now. And Drew Brees is actually cute. My new question is, have the San Diego radio stations broken out the Super Chargers song yet? I sing that song in my head every single time the Chargers are mentioned. It was that ingrained in my brain during that whole lead-up to Super Bowl XXIX…which, if I haven’t mentioned before, will be 10 years old this January. A whole decade ago. My Super Bowl XXIX sweatshirt (which I wear to bed still) is 10 years old. This freaks the heck out of me.

The Pats just beat the Rams. The Bills beat the Jets earlier today. The Niners lost miserably. Why can’t all three of my teams win? Two out of three isn’t bad, but the Niners need to step it up. According to various reports over the past few days, Kevin Barlow and Fred Beasley agree with me. But they’re placing the blame on the wrong people. Don’t blame each other, Niners–blame your front office. Oh, you can’t, they pay you.

I will wrap this up–dinner and law reading awaits–but I would be remiss if I left the previous entry without a follow-up. I wrote that entry (“Why I Moved to Boston”) at 2am after returning home from working Game 6 of the Red Sox-Yankees American League Championship Series. I honestly didn’t think the Red Sox would win, so I knew I had to express the unique hopefulness of Boston before it came crashing down. I remember when the Bills made the Super Bowl when I was in elementary school and middle school, and I remember the pep rallies in school and the parties my friends and family would have, and how my mom and I went to Ames (a discount department store) to get Bills clothing to wear during the week leading up to the game. This was exactly like that, but magnified a hundred times.

If I will remember anything for the rest of my life, I will remember two feelings: I will remember being so nervous during Game 7 that I refused to move from the raffle table. (We had raffles during Game 7 of the ALCS and Game 4 of the World Series as part of our “alternative celebration” plans.) I was forced to go in during the bottom of the ninth because I had to start the raffle immediately after the game ended. I was facing the crowd, and at the last out, there was a collective leap and a huge blur in front of my eyes. It was the most amazing feeling ever, where so many people were so excited and then the collective thud when everyone’s jump fell to the crowd. I can’t explain it any better than that.

And then there was a week later, on Nickerson Field. By this point, I was bitter and cold, hoping that they would just win because I didn’t want to have to sit out here another night and deal with the DJ and the tables and the catering–but then again it was the bottom of the ninth. And Mike, Danielle and I were standing in a line on the edge of the track facing the big screen. One of us said, “Can you believe this might actually happen?” We just watched, and watched and then all of a sudden Foulke threw it to first and the whole field either fell to their knees or hugged the person next to them or jumped in the air. All I remember is seeing at the screen and field and squealing, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, they just won the World Series!” and Danielle, Mike and I looked at each other and were just floored. I couldn’t think, “Don’t let the kids leave for Kenmore.” I couldn’t think period. At that moment, the past three weeks of getting extensions on my papers and falling behind in life in general so I could show this on campus and make it something other than just watching it on TV for these students was all worth it. It was the most amazing experience of my life.

The year I moved to Boston was the year the Red Sox won the World Series. That’s it–I’m here for life.