Both of the teams I was rooting for lost in conference championship games on Sunday. The Jets were exposed as a lower-class team with mostly toothless offense and only occasionally stingy defense. The Vikings turned the ball over four times and yet had the game for the taking with 2:29 remaining in the fourth quarter. Except, my erstwhile most favorite football player – on his second consecutive one-year un-retirement – single-handedly gave it up with yet another turnover, followed by the overtime in which he did not get a chance to touch the ball. NFL overtime rules are beyond stupid, a questionable officiating decision helped the Saints on their winning drive, but the bottom line is, as I was sitting on the couch repeating to myself “Protect the ball, get into the field goal range” at the end of the regulation, Favre managed the latter, and then screwed up with the former.
The Superbowl now holds decidedly limited interest for me: Not having seen it on the American TV for several years, I’m curious as to the commercials aspect of it. Colts in a shootout, anyway.
In other news, Cablevision and Scripps Networks have resolved their dispute regarding Food Network and HGTV, and both are back on air. Since these two channels constitute roughly 80% of Natasha’s choice of viewing, she is now back in contention for TV-watching time.
And on an entirely unrelated note, my corporate overlords recently decided to block access to a variety of blogging sites. Stand-alone domains such as mine are still accessible, but services such as Blogger are not anymore. I can still use my RSS aggregator for reading, but my ability to click through has been curtailed, which means however little I commented in the past, there will be even less of that going forward. And it goes almost without saying that I practically never spend time on blog-reading when at home. If they block RSS sites as well, I might drop out of the blogosphere altogether. Advance apologies to all of my pen friends.
I think the more telling stat with Favre was 0 sacks, but at least 15 hits. He was pretty battered by the end. And I’m getting used to the college OT rules, whereby each team gets a chance from the same yard marker to do something with the ball. Sort of like “last ups” in schoolyard baseball.
I’m actually pleased that the Saints got it. New Orleans can use the boost. And I’ve rooted for Indianapolis before, so we’ll see if the Saints can pull it off. At least last week we got rid of the last West Coast team. (grin)
No Food Network? Gah! That’s a whole lotta cable watching in our house.
Dr. Phil
FN and HGTV were off the air since January 1st until last Saturday. Natasha kept demanding that we switch our service to, say, FIOS, because those two channels are practically the only reason to have TV service, according to her.
I couldn’t figure out what my neighbor was yelling at yesterday evening, I almost never hear anything from her apartment unless the grandkids are visiting.
Then I realized she was watching the game…she’s from New Orleans!!
Ilya, others can focus on your football or HGTV topics, but I’m with you on the “not able to comment” problem, combined with not much home time spent on blogs. But don’t let that keep you out of the UCF blogosphere. When I really want to comment during the day, but am unable (unlike here on your blog), I put the comment into e-mail, send it to myself, and copy-and-paste it into the appropriate blog once I get home. It isn’t quite as satisfying, but it does make up somewhat for not being able to gratify immediately my need to comment. Hang in there. You don’t suffer alone.
I am very dissapointed with the Superbowl. I would want to see Favre at Manning in the final game. Strangely enough, I think only Favre, out of all current QBs, can win a game with that many turnovers.
Oh, well. I don’t think it’s going to be a very existing game. Manning is a machine, he knows what he wants and how he wants it, taking away all the fun from watching him. Still, I think I will root for Indy by simple proximity to Chicago.
I wonder how many commercials will have Manning in them.
Love Food Network and it’s kid friendly.