Monday Night Football: Falcons-Saints

As the last and by for most unproductive work week of the year begins, I am looking forward to Monday night football more than ever. Not only is it a chance for the Falcons' chance to clinch the division title in the spotlight against New Orleans, but it's the last week of fantasy football. My team is in the finals and is trailing 135 to 67 with only the Falcons-Saints and Vikings-Eagles games left. The good news is that my opponent has only one player left to play - Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson - while my four best players have yet to take the field. But I will still need big games from Matt Ryan, Drew Brees, Marques Colston, and/or Percy Harvin to overcome this deficit, but it is totally doable. I won the regular season title outright with an 11-2 record and just squeaked by the first 2 playoff games. So here's to hoping Brees throws for 300+ yards and 2 touchdowns to Colston but still loses.

Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet

When things go badly, I like to put a song on full volume and put it on repeat for awhile, and I have a few regular songs that I listen to for such times. Do you have a sort of ritual like this for dealing with anger? “Collide” by Dishwalla, “Schism” by Tool, and “Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet” by Relient K are three of my favorite songs to blast while I try to get unangry about something. These three songs all talk about hurting a loved one and vice versa. The first two make it seem like it’s inevitable that things would fall apart ("Doomed to crumble unless we grow, and strengthen our communication" and "When I came here there was more. Now I've come back to destroy and I've got nothing left"). The main message of the Relient K song is “know I’ll always love you but right now I just don’t like you cause you took this too far.” Look these up next time you need some good sympathetic music.


Communication is hard, apparently. Many of us suffer from having a hard time telling people “No” or not giving them an explanation or discussion that they are entitled to. Yes, if your feelings toward someone who has been an important part of your life change or your circumstances require that to change, you do have an obligation to talk to them about it. Talking about the issue honestly is clearly a superior way to handle things than to ignore the person, lie to him, lead him on, pretend to not know what’s going on, or otherwise be unclear. And if you aren’t ready for a talk (because you are too confuzzled and don’t know what you want), tell them that and give them a timeframe for when you will be ready to talk. I know I’ve written about this before but in so many failed relationships and friendships, this is a common recurring problem and I'm definitely not entirely blameless.

Being Reminded of the Past

Do you have certain places that always bring back memories of a particular event or person from your past, even a non-significant event? Maybe something like driving by a particular hotel chain reminds you of a person or driving by an exit on the interstate reminds you of that one time you took a trip down that road.


I have found myself being reminded of some rather inconsequential things just by driving by. Whenever I drive by exit 233 on I-75 I think about going to the state Science Olympiad in 9th grade. We stayed at a Hampton Inn there, but the competition was actually at Georgia Tech. However, I never had recollections of the Science Olympiad when I was at the same places as a student at Georgia Tech. When I go to the downtown Atlanta around the Hyatt Regency Hotel, I always remember the Beta Club convention when I was in 11th grade, and I remember the drama between Sharon, me, and others that weekend much more so than actually winning the math competition.

When I drive by the Atlanta hostel on my way to Chipotle on Ponce, I can’t help but think of Dana, dropping her off there on a late Saturday night, and still wondering why I didn’t kiss her and whether that had any effect on what transpired over the next couple of months. When I drive by exit 3 on I-475 around Macon, I always have a brief recollection of Casey Michael and how we used to meet at a McDonald’s there after he moved from Valdosta to Dahlonega when we were about 10 years old. When I go to Cheddar’s, a place I go quite a bit, I am reminded of the first time Hillery and I met intentionally. And now a particular bar in Columbia will surely remind me of Brittany and the silliness that has gone down there and around there in the last couple of months.

I’m sure there are lots more things like this and I guess these are good kinds of memories to have. They do correspond to happy times in my life even though the Science Olympiad one doesn’t fit in because it wasn’t a particularly memorable trip and there’s no person from that trip that sticks out at all as ever being particularly important to me.

Final Regular Season Asbury Rankings

The regular season is finished, all the bowl matchups are set, and not surprisingly, my computer still does not have Oregon at the #2 spot as every BCS computer and every human poll has the Ducks. My computer, however, is slowly approaching reality as they moved up to #6 but still behind TCU and 2 teams with 2 losses.

The SEC championship game turned out to be a rout as South Carolina sadly squandered its first and probably last chance at an SEC title for years. The ACC championship game wasn't much closer. Virginia Tech is looking like one of the best teams in the country now, very much unlike the team that started by losing to Boise State and James Madison. I'm as interested in their Bowl game against Stanford as much as any game this winter.

Here are the Asbury rankings headed into bowl season:
1 Auburn 13-0
2 Oklahoma 11-2
3 Ohio State 11-1
4 Arkansas 10-2
5 TCU 12-0
6 Oregon 12-0
7 Boise State 11-1
8 Stanford 11-1
9 Wisconsin 11-1
10 LSU 10-2
11 Virginia Tech 11-2
12 Alabama 9-3
13 Missouri 10-2
14 Oklahoma State 10-2
15 Texas A&M 9-3
16 Michigan State 11-1
17 Nevada 11-1
18 South Carolina 9-4
19 Hawaii 10-3
20 Nebraska 10-3