Nine Straight

OK, so this was a tense day. Let's start with the good part:



14-9 Michigan over Penn State. That's nine in a row, you nitty kitties!

OK, now the frustrating part. That game was supposed to be a nationally televised game. But here in the lovely nuclear wasteland we call "Buckeye Nation," the game got pre-empted on ABC, who showed the ever-competitive Ohio State - Northwestern game.

Now when this happens, ESPN is supposed to pick up the national game, ie the Michigan game. When I saw on Thursday that that was the situation, I figured I had a 50-50 chance of actually seeing the game. I was being optimistic, as it turns out.

Sure enough, come kickoff, both ESPN and ABC are showing the OSU game. Which, by the way, ends up a 58-7 blowout which I can see on two, count 'em two, channels.

Bless my lovely wife, who, upon seeing my anguish, actually called the cable company to chew them out. No dummy she, she complained that we were unable to watch the Penn State game -- had she complained about missing the Michigan game here in Ohio, no doubt the nose-picking third-grade dropout OSU fan on the other end of the line would have gleefully cackled through his missing teeth at her....

Anyway, so I have to listen to Michigan on internet radio. Not good for my blood pressure. So for three-and-a-half quarters, I'm pinned to my laptop, staring at but not actually cognizant of the Michigan State - Notre Dame game on the TV (although I will point out that Notre Dame is now 0-4, heh!).

As it turns out, the cable company was showing the Michigan game, but in the non-high-def channels (non-high-def? do people watch that anymore?). I only figured that out with four minutes left in the game. I flip over in time watch Michigan move the ball downfield and then punt with 1:30 left. So Penn State now has the ball back, and is only down by 4. Dancing through my head are visions of Penn State returning the last-second game-winning touchdown misery that Mich bestowed upon them in 2005. And now I can't watch any more.

I can't.

I just can't.

So I went to the backyard and sat here:



Yes, I am sitting on a plastic picnic bench, nursing my Nosferatu, and trying to keep from throwing up.

(Have I mentioned my love-hate relationship with football?)

Anyway, the most amusing part is that while I am sitting on a playschool picnic bench and drinking beer, I hear -- simultaneously -- both my wife and my neighbor yelling out to me from the two houses "it's okay, Chris/Honey, it's over."

And with that, Michigan's ninth straight win over Joe Paterno's Nittany Lions is in the books. I can now exhale.


(Sorry, Joe...)