Football, Futbol and Dreams

* I've blogged before about my sports superstitions, but last Sunday takes the cake. I was wearing my Brett Favre jersey in spite of the fact that the Green Bay game wasn't even on a channel I get. I was also avoiding all of my navy-and-gold patterned boxer shorts since the Packers were playing the blue-and-gold San Diego Chargers. Incidentally, turns out I have an inordinate amount of gold-and-navyish boxers. LIke, four of the 10 pairs in the regular rotation share this colour scheme. What the hell?

Anyway, so I've got the Packers jersey on, the proper boxers on, and then it comes time for a pre-game breakfast (I woke up at noon, give me a break, it was Sunday). The choices were Raisin Bran and Rice Krispies -- the winner, naturally was the two scoops of raisins. First of all, Rice Krispies has a blue box and the Kripsies themselves are a golden colour, so the closeness to the San Diego colour scheme was a big red flag. Also, the last name of Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers shared the same two opening letters as the word 'rice.' Not to mention that Jerry Rice used to play for SAN Francisco, and the Chargers play in SAN Diego.

Craziness? Packers 31, Chargers 24. Who's your messiah now, Flanders?!


* I've blogged before about that American football didn't call itself 'football,' so soccer could rightly be called 'football' the world over. But then I thought about how it would affect North American soccer. For example, Major League Soccer would become Major League Football --- or, MLS becomes MLF. They'd have to get Stifler's mom as their spokesperson.


* Okay, I'm not just going to rehash old posts today. Mark's team of the week award goes to English footb...soccer! Dammit! Anyway, it goes to English side Leeds United. Here's the story about this club. The team has been struggling with debts and ownership problems for the last couple of seasons, and as a result their future in the Football League has been threatened. It was the latest kick in the ass for a team that used to be a top-tier power but now find themselves in the third tier League One. Though the financial problems were somewhat solved before the season started, Leeds United was still penalized 15 points, meaning they started 2007-08 in a giant hole. Some felt this penalty was just, others felt it was spurred on by a general dislike of Leeds chairman Ken Bates.

In short, people had the same laughing response to Leeds that the Hispanic cop in Big Lebowski had to the Dude's question about any leads in the case of his stolen car. It would've been easy for the Leeds coaches and players to start quietly inquiring about transfers elsewhere, but instead, the club decided to take the 15-point penalty as a slap in the face. They've won their first seven league matches to start the year and have now totally erased the penalty and even temporarily escaped the relegation zone. They've got to be considered contenders to move back up to the Championship (tier two) and maybe Leeds can even go for the gusto and make a run in the FA Cup.

So thumbs up to Leeds United. As my team of the week, you win a small fries from McDonald's. I'm not sure how you want to split it up among yourselves. Perhaps the first team gets a fry each, with the captain and head coach getting an extra one. It's really up to you. I just award the fries and my involvement there ends. Doing more may result in a repeat of the horror that developed when I awarded a 10-piece McNuggets to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Rick Nash got a skate in the eye. Boy, that escalated quickly.


* Okay, so a weird dream I had last night. I had entered some big-time poker tournament, and was sitting down at an unusually large table of 12 people. The guy at the other end of the table from me was, of all people, Robert Redford. As soon as I sit down, he starts trash-talking me --- comments like, "Whoa, fresh meat at the table. I needed some new chips." Then on the first hand I'm dealt pocket fives and end up getting four of a kind to win a big pot from him. Redford stands up, frustrated and yells "Goddammit, Butch Cassidy" at himself.

It was confusing. Was he mistaking me for Paul Newman? Did he have some sort of inborn superstition that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, everything in his life has gone wrong since he made that film? Was Redford paid $5555 per day for his role as the Sundance Kid? I need to stop eating before I go to bed. I'm turning into Bill Cosby and his dreaming about birthing a giant sandwich.