Infanticide Football

I'm not going to use this post to make fun of fantasy football. I'm actually in a long-standing league with my family and some friends; the concept of the game is addicting and can be quite enjoyable. I am playing this year believe it or not; it's free money for the league as you can imagine. I am going to use this post to comment about my change of attitude, however. A long time ago, I used to weigh close to 230 pounds. My Sunday afternoons were spent drinking beer, eating lard, and jumping up and down to check my fantasy football team's progress every 5 minutes. (This was back in the nascent days of the information age so I was doing it on a 26k baud modem one pixel at a time.) I'd start this ritual at 1pm and by the 8pm game, I was drunk, bloated, and depressed. I was usually five points down against a team run by a family member who didn't have time to care and never set his roster (he never tracked the bye weeks). In other words, I would usually lose to someone playing 6 active players instead of 8. To boot, it was Sunday night and I had to soon go to bed and the face armies of overachieving, micromanaging IBM executives the next day. Those guys are are the living embodiment of demonic possession. Well, actually strike that....let me correct myself: First comes the sycophantic tyrants with stars in their eyes and next comes the IBM exec. Schuetzenstaffel. Sunday nights were sleepless--tossing and turning, burping and regretting. The horror! The horror! I'm so happy that I don't ruin my Sundays anymore. And I don't give a damn what you think of football; sitting on a couch all day and watching something unfold that you can't control, played out by a bunch of spoiled brat ingrates and their rah-rah cro-magnon, jaw thrusting-chic coaches, is a royal waste of your life. I'm so happy that I'm out racing or running long on my Sundays; the TV's off and I really have no idea who I'm starting in my family's league; I'm indeed free money for the league and that's ok. I'm using my time wisely. The journey through life's tunnel may not be filled with 1:10 half marathon hubris, but at least it's not being pissed and pooped out during the superterrific tokenblingbling cheerleader half time extravaganza. I refuse to play the role of the sports fan in the arena--being able to do NOTHING to control what is unfolding....sitting in the stands, paying admission to watch...paying for the marked-up shirt and the limited edition pom-pom. Moo Moo. The picture above this posting is my fantasy team's logo this year. Everyone else in my league has flashy helmets or creative graphics. I've got this statement and until the Benicia High School Boosters decide to reallocate $$ from the Super Mario digital scoreboard upkeep to the resurfacing of the antiquated, Appian Way that happens to be my hometown track, I'm refusing to be ready fo' sum football.