Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!

I'm updating my blog at work. Hi from Alpharetta! It's been a few days since I last updated, if anyone's noticed. I went to N.C. last weekend and hung out with Darlene and the kids (what up, dawgs!) for a couple of days, but that has nothing to do with my lack of updates.

My home computer pooped out on me the other night. No idea what happened. It was on and I was chatting with Darlene on IM, then my system just spontaneously rebooted itself, but it didn't actually reboot, if you get my drift, and I've never been able to get it back up. Ordinarily in a situation like this I call Walter and/or Ben pretty quick to find out possible remedies. I've been slow to do so this time, because it's actually been kind of nice not having a computer the last few days. I've had the chance to mellow out and spend time doing things I haven't done in a while. We don't realize how much of our lives revolve around the computer until we don't have one for a while, you know? It's been nice. I'd say I can almost appreciate what my parents must have gone through growing up without computers--living on the farm; walking uphill both ways through snow, rain, mud, and broiling sun to school; picking cotton; no phone, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury--but it would be a lie.

See, since my computer died I've made up the time by playing NCAA Football 2005 on the XBox almost nonstop (I lose the computer, so I pick the XBox right up. I'm a 21st Century digital boy!). I'm on the verge of winning the SEC Championship with the Emory Eagles in my first season of Dynasty Mode. I created the team myself, and created three customized players to populate the backfield in honor of our intramural Emory flag football days--talented running QB Benjamin Yang Temko (attributes based on Texas QB Vince Young), shifty RB/KR Antarrah Moody (based on Oklahoma's Adrian Peterson) and studly RB/PR Sam Brady (based on USC's Reggie Bush (of course it makes sense...)). The other players are a gaggle of random computer-generated guys who were created to populate the roster of my custom team.

It's been fun. In 11 games my QBs have yet to complete a pass. In a couple of games, in fact, I didn't even bother to attempt one. My entire offense is based on running the option. We lost a game to Florida when Moody fumbled inside the 10 yard line (which brought back a rather amusing memory of the real Moody crossing the five yard line in a flag game at Emory, thinking it was the goal line, and spiking the ball in celebration of his alleged "touchdown" as we all fell down laughing at the look on his face when he realized what had happened), and lost to Notre Dame when a holding penalty called back a long TD run, but otherwise we've won all our games. And before you scoff, no, I'm not playing with it set to the easiest difficulty level, either. So we're 9-2 and set to play LSU in the SEC Championship Game, then it's hopefully on to the Sugar Bowl.

I realize you don't care, but what is a blog for, if not to expound upon the pointless? This entry was going to be just to tell you that I hadn't updated because my computer was down, then it turned into a story about my XBoxing habits. I'm sure I'll get my computer back up at some point. We'll see. For now, though, I can't wait to see what the off-season brings to Dynasty Mode--recruiting trail, here I come!