Me for weeks: “Show me the stump! I want to see that stump! How many fingers does he have left? I have got to see this thing.”

and you know what? you deserve to like whatever you wanna like. you do you, boo.

You know what? I liked Garden State and I kind of loved the soundtrack. You know what else I liked? (500) Days of Summer.

I had this same feeling last night - I love football, I really do, but about 5 minutes into the pre-game broadcast I had a visceral reaction to the fucked up-ness of this league and legitimately considered not watching this year. It takes some mental gymnastics to enjoy now.

I’ve never been able to watch football. Out of a 60 minutes of play time on the clock, the ball is only in play for 11 of those minutes. Think about that, roughly 82% of the game is played with a dead ball.

I’ve tried that. The god damn NFL is so ubiquitous that it’s impossible to totally ignore it. I’ve got a twitter feed full of game reactions, sports websites that put every new detail of the latest scandal on their front page, above anything about pennant race baseball, and an email thread from friends about whether…

After seeing “touchdown, commercial, kickoff, commercial, play, time out, commercial,” I realized that my first NFL game would be my last this season. Fuck that shit.

I couldn’t agree more. The NFL’s actual product is no longer football; it’s the media rights that they can sell ancillary to the games themselves, which should come as no surprise when the football itself only commands roughly 30 days out of the entire year. Nor should it be a surprise that the on-field product is…

It is a bit laborious isn’t it? I’ve given myself over to the power of the 30-second skip feature on my DVR. Since I have young kids it’s hard enough for me to watch anything “live,” so being able to blast through 80% of the BS between plays has helped.

Honestly, I mostly have. I watched maybe five games last year. I only watched last night because a coworker had it on. Once hockey season starts I almost never watch football.

Stop watching. It’s liberating. The game time is mostly filled with inaction and penalties anyway.

No kidding. Coach your OL to keep the fuck still at the goal line if you’re concerned about it.

So...

My wonder at this point is if we will get through a single NFL game this year without a stupid, contrived mini-controversy to keep everyone consistently talking about the fucking NFL. Trying to enjoy this league is such a chore.

If there is snow in the forecast, you plan accordingly.
If a key player on your team or the other team is out, you plan accordingly. If you know a stadium is loud, you plan accordingly. If this is something everyone knows happens at Gillette stadium, you plan accordingly.

6. FOUR SUPER BOWLS! SUCK OUR FAHKIN CAWK QUEAHS!

Right. And identity theft suspects are known to be violent and aggressive. You have to tackle them to the ground and hold them for at least 15 minutes or lives will be lost.

I bet after you typed that, you re-read it a few times, and thought it sounded really clever.

He was not, but the offense quite clearly was influenced by his earlier tenure there.

Gere went on Jimmy Fallon the other night, and it was the first time I really thought Jimmy looked like an idiot. He kept interrupting Gere and talking over him with inane nonsense while Gere was trying to get some really serious stuff out about homelessness. I guess it was “too serious” for a humor-based show, but it…