I am so dead on Monday if I get to play the Packers players in Madden that it's not even funny.
I played three online games of Madden today, for practice purposes, and I lost all three. I mustered little to no offense until the last game, and I lost that on an interception in the endzone that would have won the game for me with time winding down to zero. Damn. This is not looking good...
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Monday I'm scheduled to drive up to Green Bay with my Playstation 2 in tow in order to play against one or two players and interview them about the games vs. reality, particularly pertaining to illegal hits and such.
But I guess we'll see...there's really no need for me to jump to conclusions...they could suck.

I gotta let the dogs out...then I'll start.
OK...
Last night was cool. We used the money from winning second place in our softball league to get a keg and a bunch of food and had a little Christmas/softball team party. It was cool, as it usually is with those guys and gals. Though, it was interesting, because I got this really good feeling at one point while I was sitting in my friend's entertainment room. We were all sitting there, about 15-20 of us, people talking to people--just little individual conversations going on, and the Christmas music was going (most of us really like Christmas music), and I looked around and thought to myself: "Wow, some of these people I've known my whole life, and look at how grown up we are and look at how much fun we're having. I'm glad I'm friends with these people and I get to do things like this with them."
That doesn't always happen...I just got this big urge to get up and hug each and every person in the room. And I wasn't drunk, and I feel OK--I'm not depressed or anything. It was just such a situation where I was full of happiness and stuff, I guess. I didn't hug anyone, though, because I'm a manly man.
Right now, I'm torn over what to do today. Part of me wants to sit in and play Madden 2003 all day, or at least work on a project that I've been working on. But another part of me wants to go out with the money I don't have and do a little Christmas shopping in advance. Probably that won't happen, unless I get bored with hanging out at the house. We'll see...
By the way, if you're wondering why Donna hasn't updated her blog recently, she's stowed away to the peaceful confines of Iowa for the weekend. They don't have Internet access. In Iowa, that is...no, at her parents' house. Just so y'all know...
Oh, and you can now check out Kim's blog via my links up there. I don't know why it slipped my mind to put it there in the first place...sorry Kim. But you're there now! :)

Well, I'm glad for one thing...I'm leaving work. If traffic sucks tonight, boy, I'll be pissed, because dammit, it shouldn't. I had a nice, productive day too. That's always good...

Oh well...off to the road I go...

So, I hate all of you who don't have to work. :)
On the other hand, I love all of you who don't have to work, because that just means my commute will be easier. At least I hope so...

Hey, Happy Thanksgiving to all, even though it's over... :)
Well, a crisis was averted (sp?) this week in Ghetto Bowl...thank God for that...nothing like misunderstandings having to do with sarcasm and typing to spice up the life. Fortunately, everyone has made up and all is cool...for now...just kidding, of course. :)

Today was sweet...I was going to get up and go play football, but since I went to the bar last night, I felt like sleeping in this morning. I got up and went to the parents' house...strangely enough I haven't seen them in awhile...talked to Donna, who's in Iowa...she got a raise, which is good...we'll see if that helps make her job better...I don't know. Now, let's see if I get a raise in January!

By the way, my most recent magazine column (appearing in this week's issue of the paper) is ESPN worthy! We send them (as part of a business agreement) their choice of one story and one column from our paper each week, and this week they chose mine. I'm psyched...usually they don't choose editors' columns, because most of our columnists are nationally-known and better reads. But mine wins! woohoo! :)

Hung out with the Pacer cousins...other than the ones in Texas...I get a kick out of how with me and Willie, it's just Simpsons quote after Simpsons quote. And it's funny as hell. For us, anyway. Did the typical Thanksgiving bowling thing...I actually did well until they started blasting the music...of four games, I only had one really crappy game.

I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow, but the prospect of finalizing my plans to go to Green Bay on Monday (not for the Bears-Packers game though) to play against the likes of Donald Driver and Robert Ferguson in Playstation 2's Madden 2003 for a potential story intrigues the hell out of me. I hope everything goes well. After the drubbing I took at the hands of Troy a bit ago, I handed Tim's ass to him on a platter today in Madden. Got my confidence up. I wouldn't want to walk in and play Donald Driver and have him embarrass the hell outta me.

But we'll see.

Other than that, I can't complain...Gerard's out of town, and quite frankly, I can't stand it most of the time. I don't like being in this house alone at night, because I just don't feel so safe...I'm paranoid, we all know that...but to have to defend all of the possible entryways of a house out in the suburbs on such a big lot that's pretty damned dark just drives me nuts...even with two dogs. I don't lose sleep over it, mind you, but still. It's freaky. There's always this lingering concern.

You have now entered the mind of Andy...go back before it's too late. :)

Oh yeah, and if you know him, fire off an email to Butch Stanek, who got engaged this weekend. Or, if you don't know him, feel free to email him and congratulate him too...I don't care...

yay! Comments!

Oh, and thank God I only have two more days to get on Urban Therapy. Then I can stop the daily madness... :)

Well, no entry during the day yesterday because I slept until 2pm or so. I usually get up around noon Mondays, but for whatever reason, I couldn't bring myself to get up. Then I had stuff to take care of, including taking Gerard to pick up his van after its checkup at the dealership. I did my weekly Denver radio show at 6 and then met my bro and some of the ol' neighborhood friends at Lindy's for MNF.

unfortunately, I didn't get to see or hear much of the game, because Lindy's sponsors two women's flag football teams, who squared off in the championship game that evening and then came by and packed the bar. They decided to play their chick music on the jukebox, which is usually off on Monday nights, so the game was drowned out. Plus, from where I was sitting, there were billions of people in the way of the TVs, so I missed most of the game. I did hear "Earl had to die" and a couple other songs at least twice, if not more, though...thrilling way to spend Monday night.

The girls on the winning team had been there in previous weeks, and they're pretty cool. They joked around with us, and the guys who were with them were pretty cool too. Though it was funny when one of the guys came up to me and Frank and said, "you know, most of these girls are lesbians, right?" as though we were trying to pick them up. Frank, maybe...me, no. He didn't say it maliciously...he even said he didn't want us to get our hopes up or whatever...first of all, none of them were all that attractive...and I told him, hey, thanks for the heads up, but I'm not looking anyway...I'm just enjoying talking to them and having a good ol' time at the bar. It's nice to see people living it up...it makes me feel better about things in some weird way. And the dude was cool with that and apologized for thinking we were up to something...

other than that, not much has happened...I'm thrilled that it's snowing, but I'm hoping that traffic isn't terrible (though I know it will be) so I don't miss "24" tonight...we'll see I guess...

Hopefully, tomorrow sometime (today, by your guys' and this blogger's count), I will figure out how to get the comments thing working...

Still at work, it's 1:30 am, and I'm kind of sitting with nothing to do at the moment. But here are some random thoughts from the day...

Warren Sapp kicks ass. Yes, it was a cheap shot, but so what? How many crackback blocks and chop blocks do defensive linemen have to deal with? Tough crap...I wish Sapp would have punched Mike Sherman out right there on national TV. Sherman was a prick when Sapp was simply trying to shake his hand after the game.

Can anyone stop Priest Holmes?

Can anyone choke the ESPN Sunday-night broadcasters for me? Particularly Joe Theisman. Please...put us all out of our misery. Why does an intelligent broadcaster like Sam Wyche lose his voice, yet we are forced to listen to Theisman?

My preseason Super Bowl pick, the Jets, is looking better and better each week now. I just hope Chad Pennington doesn't splat soon. Then again, I said on the Web site a few weeks ago that the Steelers were my new pick, but not everyone reads that, right?

Kenoy Kennedy of the Broncos is a purebred headhunter, no doubt about it. If you saw Qadry Ismail catch the ball late in the game on Sunday night and slip, you might have noticed Kennedy flying over him. Ismail likely has never been happier about slipping, because Kennedy had him marked.

Speaking of the late game...I love snow football.

Speaking of snow...I love snow, but I'm not looking forward to my drive home...I just looked out the window and noticed the street to be quite reflective of the streetlights...and I've been told that it's very slippery out there. Here's hoping the salt trucks made it out.

Well, that's all for now...maybe more later after I get up, well into your guys' work days.

Well, there is someone up there who actually likes me...though I almost screwed up (through no fault of my own) again.
I tried calling Jason Taylor again earlier this afternoon and he called back around 7pm. I had procrastinated/run into a brain freeze about the column I had to write, too...so I'm glad he called. And he gave me all the time in the world and gave me some decent answers...I checked the caller ID later and was stunned to see him actually listed...so if Jason Taylor called your house on a wrong number and you knew who he was, you could easily hold onto his cell phone number. Sounds like a potential scam victim someday to me... :)
Of course, the near screw up is that I almost could have missed him again. My brother invited me out to NIU to take in the Depaul/NIU basketball game, which went off at 5:30. I decided (not because of Taylor) that I didn't want to go, even though NIU was unveiling a shiny new arena, which would have been neat to say I was at the first game (plus, my real first team in college hoops is Depaul). So I was sitting around watching TV when he called, thankfully. And he was nice, too...though he has a very good rep with the media anyway...
So, I was saved. Of course, I spent all evening while Donna was here writing the column, and I didn't get done fast enough for us to go see a movie. So we rented "Orange County." A bit overrated and slow-moving at times...hell, the promos they had in the extras were funnier than the movie, simply because they let Jack Black just do whatever...pretty funny stuff. And Donna was nice about the whole thing too...which is good. Though she has a very good rep with the media anyway...
Tomorrow, I hear we're supposed to get some snow...will it stick? Who knows? It doesn't matter anyway, since I'll be holed up in the office. Oh well, I guess that's what I get, right? :)
Well, off to bed...I tried to install comments on here, though I don't know if they worked or not...we'll see.