In which my wife watches football, screams, dances, and her mother mocks me

My wife has never been much of a football fan. She's always been willing to sit and watch if I had it on, but she's never been particularly interested in what was going on. As this season has progressed, though, she's shown increasing interest in keeping up with the players on my fantasy team. She's especially enjoyed watching the Patriots, since their QB (my cousin Tom Brady) is also the QB of my fantasy team. As the season has gone on, she's also started to get more and more into whether the Pats would stay undefeated or not.

This weekend was the end of the NFL regular season. The Patriots were playing the Giants on Saturday night in an effort to go 16-0. Giant WR Plexiglas Burress is on my fantasy team, but my wife's interest was solely in New England going undefeated. Plax was an afterthought.

We were in Maggie Valley visiting her parents this weekend. I turned the game on in their living room at 8:00, expecting her to spend the time chatting with her mom and maybe keeping half an eye or so on the game (and maybe getting onto me for watching football instead of visiting). Instead, as it turns out, her mom spent the evening on the computer playing online games at Pogo, and Darlene and I sat side-by-side on the couch watching the Patriots make history.

I've never seen her more into a football game. She yelled at the officials, taunted Eli Manning, encouraged the Patriots when they needed it and generally stayed involved in the game like a true football fan. It was really cool. It was like watching a Jets game with Welchie, except without the f-bombs and evil cackles.

The best part came when Laurence Maroney scored a touchdown and did some sort of arm-wiggly-flappy dance. She yelled, "Go, butterfly!" She then spent the rest of the game jumping up and doing the same dance whenever the Pats did something good. At one point I hollered at her mom, "Look at Darlene do the touchdown dance!" Her mom looked at her like she was crazy, then turned to her dad and said, "She's been married to Sam too long." Yeah. Like it's all my fault. I didn't raise her.

:::(=====)::: (that's my halo, radiating innocence)

Anyway, she was a little worried when the Pats were down by 12, but I told her, there's plenty of time. After the next Patriot TD, she started predicting the Giant loss with more confidence after every play. When Moss scored on his long bomb, we both screamed like lunatics and the Patriot victory was met with great satisfaction on the couch.

I got to watch football with my wife. She actually enjoyed herself! That's pretty cool.

In which I show you our Christmas pictures

This is our Christmas 2007 slideshow video. Music by Vince Guaraldi. Happy New Year to all!

In which we wish you a Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Sandy Springs and Da Bunch! We've had a fantastic weekend, with Santa coming to see everyone and lots of family love and fun all through the weekend. Sage was here with us, and we spent Christmas Eve with my brother and his family opening presents. We had a fantastic time. We took lots of pictures, and I plan on putting together a Christmas slideshow to post here soon. For now, I leave you with Season's Greetings, and hopes for a happy 2008.

In which the season comes to an inglorious end

"That's all we got? Six g**d*** points?"

Harry Doyle (paraphrased)

With all the fantasy football talk on the blog lately, I figured I should let you know that the dream has ended. Sandy Springs FFC, the second-highest scoring team in the 16 year history of the UFFL, went out with a whimper last week, losing to Chunky Soup in the first week of the playoffs by the punk score of 9-6.

9-6?!?

6???

That's right, Faithful Readers. Sandy Springs FFC, the second-highest scoring team in the 16 year history of the UFFL, only scored 6 points. After averaging over 32 points a game during the regular season, it all fell apart in the playoffs, as nobody scored except the kicker.

To be fair, it has been slowly falling apart for the last six weeks. After the first nine weeks of the season SFC was 8-1 and averaging almost 38 points a game. Since then, counting the playoff loss, the record was 2-4, and the scoring average was way down. Plexiglas Burress and Maurice Jones-Drew lost their scoring touches late in the season, the Patriots have been running the ball more, and I have seemingly lost my ability to decide which of my kickers will score the most points in any given week. I guess it's somehow fitting, then, that the only points scored in this fiasco were by the kicker.

When I was doing the UFFL newsletter every week I called a game in which only the kicker scored a "Chip Lohmiller" game, in honor of Ben's early-days UFFL efforts, when his kicker (and only consistent scorer) was Chip Lohmiller. This was my only Lohmiller of the season. A fine time to pay tribute to my old friend's early-1990's mediocrity. Pfaugh!

Anyway, I'm out of the playoffs after the most successful season I've ever had, statistically speaking. Watch me score 50 points the next two weeks. Sigh. Maybe I'll hire Bill Parcells to run my team next year. Oh, wait, he's gone to Miami. Never mind.

In which we review the year 2007

Stealing an idea from Rake, here is a little video slideshow I put together showing off some of the Brady Bunch's great moments from 2007. The music is by Genesis, the good times are courtesy of Da Bunch. It's about five minutes long. Hope you're all doing well as the holidays approach!

In which I tell you about SFC v. BAK

I lost the fantasy football game. It wasn't 59-2, but Sandy Springs FFC fell to Bake-O's 31-21. To his credit, Shim hasn't yet gloated. I started the wrong running back. If I'd started Leon Washington at RB instead of Chicago's Adrian Peterson, I'd've won. As a result of the game, Bake-O's moves into first place in the Barney Division and can clinch the title this weekend with a win over Men O'War. SFC plays Lethal Weapon 4, who have Peyton Manning at QB, but not much else. If SFC wins and Bake-O's lose, SFC pulls out the division title. If SFC scores 45 points, they capture the all-time scoring record. That's not likely to happen, with the Pats playing Pittsurgh, but hopefully the W can still come through and give us the division title. More updates as events warrant. Wish me luck!