Bears-Giving (Bears-Taking)

 I had thought to post two new posts on Thanksgiving Day - the first a diatribe on the failure of modern society; and the second about the Chicago Bears, who no matter how lowly they may be just now, I was pretty sure, would win that day... and so they did, but as always, disappointingly.

I watched the finale of the Minnesota Loons' 2021 Season the same day the Bears pissed away a perfectly good chance to beat the Baltimore Ravens sans Lamar Jackson.  After that miserable game, I considered including the traditional "end of season" consumption for the Bears along with my Loons one on the Arfives, but at the last moment did not...

And now, after a single lowly win versus a winless opponent, the Bears find themselves technically one game back out of a playoff position.  And sure, they are behind in almost all of the tiebreakers at present, but as Hub Arkusch points out, that is in large part because two of the Bears' (merely 4) wins are against AFC teams, so if they wind up tied for a playoff spot at the end of the season, they will need to win some (probably most) of their remaining games that are all against the NFC, so tiebreakers would improve.

Now, neither Hub nor I think that is necessarily going to happen, or even very likely, but hell, it's the NFL.  I stopped making picks on fiveThirtyEight's Football Picks Contest after week 6, and my lead over their algorithm has increased significantly!  The NFL is weird this year (weirder than most years), and bad teams are beating better teams with frequency.  So why not us?

Sure, there are currently technically only two teams in the NFC that are in a worse position, the Seahawks (3-7) who the Bears have a matchup against upcoming, so technically an inferior opponent... and the aforementioned Lions who have yet to win a game, but did manage a tie (against the .500 Steelers, who might get to be the first ever .500 team in a season with an odd number of games {and also another team who the Bears almost beat, and admittedly [as in admitted by the NFL after the game] should have beaten had there not been a few mistaken calls by officials late in the game}).

So... Why Not Us? (And I know, I know, factories of sadness, and all that... I promise, I won't get my hopes up.  Unless... we beat Arizona at home on Sunday.  Then our chances to make the playoffs leap from 2% where they stand now to 9% {according to fivethirtyeight}, but then again, what the frak do they know!?)

GOBEARS!!!

0 - 4 (well there goes that...)

 It's halftime at Old Trafford (well, I'm at the Colonel, but Liverpool are at Old Trafford), and the visitors are up by 4 first half goals.  Nottingham Forest on the other hand have lost earlier this morning 0 - 4 home at The City Ground.  It's Forest's first loss under Steve Cooper who came on as the new gaffer after a historically horrendous start to their season, which found them dead last in the league, and in the relegation zone.

It's a proper football Sunday with the Packers playing at noon, and the Bears facing a tough match-up in Tampa Bay later on this afternoon.  (And, it the span of starting this post, Liverpool have scored again to give Mo Salah a well-deserved hat trick and disturb the synchronicity of the concept of the 0 - 4 post...

Regardless, I wanted to take the brief 0 - 4 moment to reflect on where things stand from my own sports fandom after a Bucks championship, and a disappointing end to a 4th consecutive playoff season for the Brewers.

Despite the loss today, this is the first run of play from Forest since I have been following them when I've felt unapologetically optimistic about the team.  Coming off the the high of 2 extra-time goals by Lyle Taylor to win at Bristol City midweek, we knew that we would eventually have to lose a game:

So too the Bears, who have inspired little but misery, despair and disappointment over the past 35 years, are generating some optimism this season having won the games the were supposed to have won while losing to 3 superior opponents.  They stand at .500 and might just have an upset within them today against an inflated Buccaneers team.  While this season is clearly not their year to win a championship, I've got an open bet for them to make the playoffs that I feel pretty okay about.

In fact, in my first year of online sports betting*, I have a few remaining open bets that will take me well into the black for my overall history.  It's a strange sports moment for me, finding myself feeling fairly positive about the overall direction and prospects of all of my teams.

*Unfortunately, my ability to place bets is limited by the finickiness of United States geography and civics, whereby, I am permitted to make bets online when I find myself within the boundaries of the state of Illinois, but not Wisconsin, so the only time I make sports bets has been when I find myself taking one or other of my parents to various medical appointments either at Northpointe wellness facility in Rockton or dropping them in Beloit, and then quick like crossing state lines while waiting for them to finish.

first!

I've been a fan of the Chicago Bears football club since nearly as long as I can remember.  But not quite.  I remember very early in my life thinking that Franco Harris was the awesomest football player ever.  I also remember declaring at some point early on that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were my team (I think because of the sweet creamsicle color featured on the magnetic helmet that generally sat in last place on the standings board on my wall.  I was actually wooed some years later by the same phenomenon when I briefly decided that the Florida Marlins would be my baseball team as I hadn't been much of a Brewers fan since the early 80s Ben Oglivie days).

I've come by most of my fandoms earnestly: the Bears were selected when I was very young because we got to go and see their training camp in the summers in Plattville, WI where my mom was completing graduate coursework between school years.  Their winning a Super Bowl in my formative years helped, but that bandwagon jumping has been paid off dearly for suffering through decades of painful disappointment and false hope.

Being a fan of the Chicago Bears is (what I long thought was) a uniquely painful experience.  It's not the perpetual basement dweller syndrome of someone like 20+ years of Brewer's baseball (until the playoff drought ended in 2008 in our first season as 10-pack ticketholders and actually once more becoming a Brewer's fan).  Rather, the pain of the Bears is that they consistently show promise and hope - brief spurts of success, only to come crashing back down and making you feel dumb for even getting engaged in it all again.  As I said, i thought this fan experience was unique to the Bears, until I found it again taking up a fan interest in my now favorite sports franchise: Nottingham Forest Football Club.  

A few years ago, I made a very conscious decision to 'get into' club football.  I've watched a lot of international soccer over the years (World Cup, Euro tournaments, US National Team qualifiers and tournaments), but beyond vaguely "choosing" the Chicago Fire as the closest MLS team who I've gone to see a couple of times at Soldier Field and Borussia Dortmund as the "local team" I chose when studying in Germany, I had no loyalties.                  

*   *   *

26 July 2020 - 11:07am CDT

As loyal readers and frequent checkers of this site will know (I see you when you all drop by!), I frequently 'post-date' the most recent post.  Whereby, I start to write a post, and set the date and time of publishing the post at the moment I started writing it, even if (as often happens) I don't finish the post until days (or sometimes even weeks) later.  My thinking with that is that I want to preserve the moment of the original idea, and generally when I finish the draft the post is still the newest on the site (because I don't write here that often).  On many occasions, I don't ever finish the post, and may years later publish and add a dated post script like this one.

The reason I needed to add one to this post is because, like the posts where several years have passed before I get to publishing them I have fundamentally changed between their writings and I no longer inhabit the same world I did when I started writing this post.  I started this post planning to write about fandom, elective, absorbed and inherited.  For the last couple years, my favorite team in all of sports has been Nottingham Forest F.C. 

The post was going to be about how I had selected a team who managed to supplant the lowly Bears as purveyors of heartbreak.  Best described, I think, by Nottingham native, Phil Juggins, who I met a couple of times back when NFFC were last in the Premier League when I visited Nottingham on my spring break from Uni Muenster.  As I dug in to the history of Forest, I found them to be a team that tended to break fans down with flashes of promise and success followed by epic failure.

And then it was Wednesday, and omfg, I've never felt so broken from a sports result.  The Double Doink was nothing compared to Wednesday.  Wednesday will be a historical moment... but it will pass, and will become a part of the groundwater of being a Forest supporter.  I'm sure I am not the only fan of NFFC and the Chicago Bears, but we few are loyal union members of the factories of sadness that are City Ground & Halas Hall.

But maybe next season will be our year...

Stakes, rare...

A dozen years ago today, I started a post where i was going to (i think) review the holiday show we'd been to see a few days prior.

I have these past few years been working on a reclamation project for Roman Numeral J - finishing the "draft" posts that were never released to the public (quite a tragedy, i know).  Generally, i've tried to recapture what i remember as the original intent of the post.  (On occasion, these have been "important" RNJ contributions, really furthering the thinking and mission of this blog.  Other times, including the John Waters one).

As i watch the 4th quarter of the 200th matchup of the Bears & Packers (Anthony Miller just scored to bring them within one score), i wonder for a moment what it's all about...  Why write this?  Why post it publicly?

My answers are manifold.  I do still primarily consider myself a writer.  And a thinker.  Success in this capacity is nebulous for me.  Or any capacity, really.  I write because i enjoy it.  I write because i value the ability to look back at how my thinking has changed over time.  I write to commit myself to the thoughts i thought at a certain time.  (Our era is one of self revisionist thinking - where we can pretend we always knew the things we now know.  The era of truthiness is all around us). 

Happy Christmas to all of y'all.

EPIC (bad) Game Day

Few things in day to day life are worthy of being described as "epic".

Hangovers - to be sure.  A few times I've gone to a good man's home in Waukesha for Epic Game Day (and sometimes have played board games that fit the epic description).  There's a company that calls itself "Epic", but I don't think that it really is all that epic...

Today was an epic sports day for me, and it went so so badly...  Almost all of my selected sports teams were playing today - and they all failed to win.

My night ended with the end of this season's road for Minnesota FC, who a short time ago lost their first ever playoff game.  The Loons are in only their 3rd year of existence as an MLS team.  I started following them closely during the summer of 2018, when I started following a number of European Clubs closely - checking fixtures and watching games when they are available for tv consumption.

A few hours earlier, my Chicago Bears played a craptastic game and lost badly to fall to 3-3 for the season.  In a classic Bear's move, the team suddenly came to life and scored 2 TDs in the final 2 and a half minutes (and even appeared to grab a second onside kick) even though the game was fully out of reach at that point...

I've written of my Bears fandom, but never I think, specifically, about how completely they are the absolute worst fucking team to be a fan of ever with the way they give and take and seem like they're something and then pull a rug out from under and then totally suck, but show signs.  The Double Doink was pretty much the moment my entire Bear fandom had been leading up to for most of my life... and now this.

Prior to the Bears barf-fest, my Liverpudlians failed to win.  They did tie, but meh - now that we win so often, it's a bit of a let-down (though we were somewhat lucky to equalize...).  And, although it was available on ESPN+, I missed the earlier Nottingham Forest match - which we lost to fall out of the top spot on the table.

Looking for the Joel Chicago / Wisco Sweep!

It's a mini-Lake Michigan Circle Tour sports eclipse with the Green Bay Packers playing tonight at Soldier Field in Chicago against the Bears, and the baby bears of Wrigley Field playing in Milwaukee against the Brewers.

I am likely fairly unusual in my rooting interest for this event, hoping the Brewers sweep the Cubs this weekend (to move into a tie {at least with them} for the Wild Card race) and the Bears dominate the Packers in an embarrassing entree for their new head coach, Not Mark McMurtry.

* 6:56pm *

Brewers are holding a 2-1 lead so far in the 3rd and i'll comment later as we go.  I predict the Brewers go 3-1 and the Bears win 27 - 10.

* 7:21pm *

Virginia McCaskey intros the 100th season - the Cubs have tied it up (grrrr), but i still think the Brewers will win 3 out of 4 (to clarify) and will hold the Bears to their score (though i want to up the win margin because of Aaron Rodgers' douchebag moustache - is #douchebagMoustache trending yet?)

* 7:35pm *

Arcia is at second with 1 out!  Packers have gone nowhere in these first 5 plays...

* 7:47pm *

Jackson walks a lead off man after Eddy Pineiro hits his first ever field goal!

Now there's a second on base and Jackson makes a BIG PITCH to get Khris Bryant...  And a first pitch gift against Rizzo...

* 8:38pm *

both enemy teams are on the threat...

hard to remember the last time...

It's NFL early Christmas today, with the floundering Green Bay Packers coming to Soldier Field to take on the FIRST-PLACE Chicago Bears.

Source: sportsmockery.com

It's a marquee, albeit noon, game - it's a rematch of Week 1, where the Bears owned the first half and then collapsed under an epic Aaron Rodgers comeback.  During the final few minutes of that game, shane and i were texting that the Bears were only going to get better, and this week nearer the end of the season would be a damn tough game for the Packers.  Now, Shane is a full-throated Packer fan who was in part being kind to a friend during an embarrassing defeat, but i think he had a glimmer of what might be in front of him as a Packer fan.

3+ months later and the landscape has changed quite a lot.  The Bears enter 6-point favorites, and even with that, the strangest thing about this game is that Bears fans, myself included, feel fairly confident that we are the much better team playing this game today.  It doesn't mean we can't lose, but it does mean we will probably win, and should all things being equal win convincingly.

The question then arises, how best to watch such an epic match-up.  There are a plethora of mostly Packer-slanted events across Milwaukee.  You could go to:

• The Cactus Club and see the cover band Green Day Packers
• You can happily watch the game at every bar in Milwaukee, to be sure, but here are some of the best spots...
• The exception might be the local best soccer bar, which on Sundays becomes the High-Bear-y Pub

But no, for me, and a game this big, i need to be in my home, on my couch - i may text the outside world on occasion, but the emotion of this game day is my own and my highs or lows that may be to come over the next few hours need to be my own.  I don't want to gloat (or be gloated upon).  Although i appreciate the collective fandom experience, and think it's an important part of modern life that we mostly miss out on and it makes us all the worse (so says one of my favorite books!).

Enjoy the game everyone... for once, i feel pretty good about it and i'll see you all in late January for discussion of any snark and commentary!

F(r)ight Night!

I'm clearly not the first person to have this thought, but as I sit and watch the early minutes of bad that is the Bears Colts game (I always think of a Bears Colts game as a Super Bowl rematch!) at beautiful Lucas Oil Stadium, I am awaiting a day of competitive, combat sport competition - first this epoch battle to see which defense is absurd and which is merely amateurish. 


www.thundertreats.com

This will be followed by the second presidential debate, featuring Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, which, worst case scenario, may well end in an actual brawl (not quite joking).  I think best case, it will be wildly offensive, spite-filled, and misogynistic. 

I don't usually do timely here, but the reason these two items conjoin in my mind, is because I often think about what these massive stadiums will look like after our civilization is faded. 

This presidential cycle has looked a lot like the beginning of the end - either a continuation of tap-the-brakes policies, occasionally modestly holding off ecological and economic catastrophe; or a fool and compulsive liar who will do goddess knows what if he is elected. 

I've seen this all before - but mainly on TV or in game play.  See you at the stadium (or maybe the thunderdome?)



Vote Happy

Election Day will soon be upon us, once again.  Milwaukee has a Socialist running for Sheriff (she seems really lovely, smart, and on the right side of history!), and a Green Party candidate for State Treasurer (and in September, his numbers were pretty okay!).

In this sad/silly era of bought & sold candidates, dangerous zealots (as well as more clown-ish zealots), and a political campaign and lobbying system that encourages corruption, a progressive looking for genuine reform options often doesn't know which way to turn.  Of course, Democrats being in charge of things is less bad than Republicans.  So, the sensible choice seems to vote for Democrats in close races, and vote more radically (Greens, Socialists, liberal Independents) when it's expedient.  The fear-mongering lessons of Ralph Nader loom large, despite the fact that they're misguided.

Nationally, there are a lot of interesting races.  That said, the US House is guaranteed to remain in Republican hands, despite the fact that more people will probably end up voting for Democrats.  Thank you gerrymandering.

Unfortunately, the same reason can't be given for why the Senate seems poised to fall into Republican hands as well.  Though it would be awesome, wouldn't it?  To re-draw the state lines to re-organize people into more culturally appropriate regions? 

• East and West Dakota - East Dakota would be a 40 or so mile wide strip surrounding the I-29 corridor, stretching from Grand Forks all the way down to Kansas City (anything north of GF we can give to Canada).
• Up North - the northern part of Minnesota and Wisconsin, along with the UP.

  

  Source: www.pastemagazine.com

• The Middle Bit - a utopic plot of mostly rural farmland, focusing primarily on the biography of me, including Clinton, Wisconsin, stretching up north to Madison, then over to Decorah, Iowa, then up to Minneapolis.  It looks a bit like those Tetris pieces that go down one, over one, down one again (see picture, except the other one, and turned vertically).
• Austin, Texas - Austin, Texas.
• Yellowstone - Just a really cool state to visit.  First bear governor.
• Iraq - I know we're mostly moved out, but it's time to start colonizing, people.

The State of Wisconsin has a useful resource for figuring out what all is going to be on your ballot: 

At the top of the ballot, of course, is the Mary Burke / Scott Walker race for Governor.  This one will come down to turnout, and while I'm not overly excited about Mary Burke, she's the choice.

Down the ballot a ways is our rootin'-tootin' Sheriff Clarke, running against Angela Walker.  It seems the last time the Journal Sentinel deigned to mention her in an article was August 8th, when Chris Moews was being backed against the gun-loving sheriff by Michael Bloomberg. 

The Enlightening Discourse of Boers & Berstein

Ah Facebook...

You so often serve as a useless window, staring at the brick wall of human inanity, but sometimes - just sometimes - you illuminate the world around us - just a little bit.

As I've been perusing "the news" on Facebook over the last few days, reading first the meatball lead-up to a typically heart-wrenching end to a Chicago Bears season followed by alternately whiny Bears fan tearing their young, injured quarterback apart for appearing on film looking disappointed about not finishing the biggest game of his life and gloating Packer's fans, I've noticed a disturbing trend.

The tone and substance of the posts and comments that the end of the football season is being discussed are frighteningly similar to the parallel comments on the outcome and lead up to the 2010 elections. The gloating, the often vicious (or at least thoughtless) commentary, the bombastic tone - and ultimately the pathetically uncritical scope of most of the writing on facebook about sports events, elections... anything really demonstrates one of the real shortcomings of the medium.

Not so, though, the medium of the radio. Much like television, radio has enormous potential for imparting information in useful ways. Marshall McLuhan called radio the...


*  *  *

July 2018
..."tribal drum".  What strikes me as most amazing about not just this observation of McLuhan's, but most of his work, is how prescient his writing is today


* * *

October 2018
... and even today.  Or moreso today! 

The Tribal Drum seems like exactly the theme I was planning to return to not so long ago.  Boers & Bernstein has been the sound of Chicago Sports Talk Radio (and importantly, The Score has always been that same voice) of the aughts and most of the 2010s.  This post, despite its academic and leftist turn, was first and foremost a celebration of the best Sports Talk Show that I've ever know. 

Noam Chomksy (via Michael Moore) was the first person to point out to me that the discourse found on a typical sports talk radio show was more elevated than the discussions found on any NPR or news radio or (general right wing) talk radio in the United States. 

I don't mean to pretend that there is not a meatball contingent in sports talk - just that there is an equal or larger meatball contingent in any news broadcast (I'm looking at all y'all FOX News, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, ABCNBCBS, blech).

Chomsky & Moore point out that the American populace is not, as often seems the case, uninformed unintelligent unsophisticated.  If you listen to callers on sports talk radio (not all of them, but the good ones) the extent to which they are informed and intelligent, and their arguments sophisticated.  B&B ensured this - they elevated conversations and called out bullshit when it wafted in.

Our political dialogue today seems like our sports fandom.  Even more so in 2018 as it was in 2011, but it's been a trend line since the 1990s.  The primary difference between the two reveals itself on sports talk radio - the ability to be self critical and diagnose the problems within your own team. 

Of course the part that's easy to forget is that we're all on the same team...

the Jay Cutler Era

This evening marks the dawning of a new era for the Chicago Bears. Today, the Bears made what may be their most audacious move in team history, trading their first round picks this year & next year, plus a third round pick (this year) & Kyle Orton (all round nice guy, but not a great dog name) for Jay Cutler & a fifth round pick.
Jay Cutler's addition to the Bears will mean that fans in Chicago (not to mention Bears management) will finally have to take a sharp, critical look at the rest of the team they're fielding.

For years now (how many years since Sid Luckman {hell, i'd take a Jim McMahon} was in town?) Bears fans have been able to look at the quarterback position as the source of all of our woes. While i was a long-standing supporter of Rex Grossman (going so far as to even name my dog after him), i always had the sense that he wasn't a real answer to our problems, but the Bears management had put so much into him, wagered on him, that i wanted to believe.

Now they've got a bona-fide, honest-to-goodness quarterback in Jay Cutler. Tomorrow, the Bears will have to start to realize that they haven't had a viable Wide Receiver since, what, Willie Gault? Their line seems a bit shored up this season, assuming Chris Williams pans out, but it's still cobbled-together & kinda old. On a bright note, they do have pretty good Tight Ends. Hooray, we've got good tight ends (note, several, not just one, so whenever we're in a 2 TE set, look out world).

Their defense, the erstwhile strength of the team, is all but gone. Tommie Harris may never be Tommie Harris again. The rest of the D-Line is on something of a precipice, they could work out, but didn't get it done last year. Linebackers, well, Brian Urlacher... John Madden loves him. He's good, isn't he? And Lance Briggs (is he still with us? did he successfully escape? {NOTE: this blog is quite possibly the worst informed blog on the planet, i literally know nothing of which i speak}). Once you get back to the D-backfield, we're fairly lost. A lot of players who've proven they are players, but not recently.

Finally, Devin. Oh Devin. I can only assume you were a real thing. That you, indeed, are...ridiculous. There were all sorts of reasons that we gave for you not returning half a dozen kicks for TDs, but i've still got faith (Bears fans need a good deal of this).

Ultimately, i think if Devin (or some combination of Devin & Manning) can pose the scary-ass danger they did up until this season, and the Bears can start most drives between the 40s & Jay Cutler doesn't arrive in Chicago and realize just how low the bar is set here, and the defense behaves as a Bears defense is meant to behave and if the coaching staff doesn't coward their way toward a long sequence of losses... we might actually be okay this year. I am feeling fairly optimistic, but, then again, i've had this same feeling each of the last 20 or so seasons, so don't trust me on this...

on the Pathologist to success...

It's been a lovely last several days... Since Saturday aftereve much has happened. We've not been without houseguests, we met the house we think we might LOVE, and we made an offer (and had said offer rejected) on said house.

Saturday we discovered a lovely 2-story colonial... that's just about perfect... and we think we'd like to buy it. Then, Saturday, andy flew in from Atlanta, after a conference presentation, and good times were had... Dinner at Lulu's, then some drinks at At Random... He stayed long enough to watch the Bears lose and for us to put an offer in on the house and headed to Clinton Monday morning... at which time, the wheels of houseguest fate spun joel miron in our direction. Miron is interviewing pathological programs for his residency coming up next year and one of his possibilities was here in the greater Milwaukee area.

We explored a bit of Milwaukee - drinking, seeing the lake on a cold, sleety, rainy afternoon, drinking old school cocktails (Bourbon Old Fashioned - Sour, Tom Collins, & a Harvey Wallbanger) at Comet Cafe, revelry, drinks at Paddy's, sleeping.

Our alleged new house is in the Tippacanoe neighborhood (seriously) of southern Milwaukee... Theme party's abound - then, it's also a two-story colonial, opening up even another realm... So, start your theme engines now... and get ready to visit real soon...

Gains & Losses

I buried my guinea pig today. Bitey Gilbertson, possibly the greatest guinea pig of all time has passed away.

2007 has been something of the proverbial roller coaster thus far and i've been in something of a funk, but i feel like the digging and filling of a hole in the ground has worked some therapeutic magic on me. So, as Jonas Mekas' project enters its 54th day i share the sparrow's feeling of freedom and release, with it comes the need to tell my story.

As i said, 2007 has already had its highs and lows. Gilbertson's passing was really hard to take. When we came back to Omaha after Christmas we noticed a sudden weight gain in him. After a couple of vet visits he had some treatment that was working on and off, but he wasn't himself. He died in his sleep, likely of a sudden heart failure.
That same weekend, Brooke's birthday, DaveT, Carolyn & Brigette were visiting and we accrued a new family member. Rex Grossman, a 2-month-old 'Bogle' (or perhaps a Boglin Terrier), came home Sunday afternoon. Part Beagle, part Boston Terrier, Rex seems to have gotten the best of both doggie worlds and is a fine looking, kinda gross, puppy. Aside from a nasty poop-eating habit the little guy is pretty cool.

On a related 2007 hi-low, January was spent watching my precious Bears win their way through to the Super Bowl and after Devin Hester's opening return i thought it was our year. But despite my obvious disappointment at the outcome they had an amazing run and i am actually excited for next year.

My first quarter of teaching at Metro Community College wraps up next week. The quarter went fairly well, though, i think what it was really good for was giving me an idea of how to do this next quarter. I've seen growth in several of my students and will likely only have to end up failing/giving incompletes to a couple of them.

It's also the season of graduate school news. Stanford wrote me to request that i kindly not go to school there, please, but i did get an acceptance letter of sorts from UW-Milwaukee. The last few days have been quite spring-y indeed and though i hear a wintering is coming this weekend, overall, things are looking up.

Da Bears

Oh it's been too long.

21 Years in fact. That doesn't even seem like a reasonable amount of time to think about, but it's literally how long i've been waiting.

The Bears are going back to the Super Bowl. I don't even know quite how to accept it. There is no team i like quite like i like the Bears. And though they were decent last season, this was the first year in a long time that i've actually expected something out of them (granted, every year in august i predict they will go undefeated, but this was the first season i meant it).

I can't quite imagine who exactly will rap, but the Super Bowl Shuffle is back on. Oh oh oh go Bears!

At least i'll be gone by then...

I went to see Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth this afternevening & it was, i think, the scariest fucking movie i've ever seen. It's one of those movies that you see and you think, just what is it, that i think i'm doing here? Al Gore, who is decidedly not a scientist (but is a pretty damn smart guy), dedicates his work to solving Global Warming... Me, i dedicate my work to thinking about zombies & corpses... I suppose it all amounts to the same

I'm also currently reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Both of these texts are of the life-changing sort... at least in their textio-mission statements are concerned. Inconvenient Truth first and foremost is a work that wants to convince all viewers (and by extension [six degrees of it, seemingly]) the world needs desperately to sort this whole "we're all gonna die" situation out, but is also, in the end a 'what-can-i-do' today sort of conclusion.

Dawkins - who i've never read before, but loved for quite some time (via Douglas Adams) - creates a text whose stated goal in the first chapter is to convince agnostics that they should entirely abandon the idea of an active, interested God & that believers should similarly abandon their faith in the face of such absolute improbability of the existence of God. I'm not too terribly far in, as of yet, but the project seems to surround first breaking down "logical" arguments for the existence of God and then constructing the vast improbability of the existence of God (versus the odds/likelihood of a Darwinian-style natural selection of the universe).

Now i've just witnessed the Bears come back from a 23-3 deficit near the end of the 3rd Quarter and if i were more desperate to find God in the world than i am i'd say the victory was a minor miracle (a miracle in the tradition of the unexpected parking space close to the destination - which, as Dawkins points out takes the space away from someone else), because they were terrible offensively & scored 3 defensive/special teams touchdowns to win the game in the 4th Quarter. I'm sure there's some amount of 20 years of suffering (20/40 what's the difference) neccesitating great glory and happiness in the land to come (by which of course the first 6 weeks of the 2006 season)

Anyway... point being (was, beed?) a movie & a book that everyone needs to experience. Go now... you here four hours, you go now!

Got Wins!

Today was a huge day in the world of Sport Joel. In addition to the 7 or so mile walk along the Iowa Riverside Trail, the Twins won their final game of the season, securing the AL Central title over the Tigers and the Bears had a huge and convincing win over the Seahawks on a national broadcast.

Both my teams won in a big way today, and though i'm not normally one to write about my sports excesses, today is a rare day indeed. The Twins managed to avoid a first round showdown with the Yankees, which (no matter what "expert" columnists say) is a very good thing. Of course you can speculate on whether a 5 or 7 game series against the biggest threat is better, but in my mind ending on a winning note, securing home field in the series against the A's, and possibly letting someone else be the team to knock the Yankees out doesn't seem like a bad situation to be in.

The Bears, meanwhile, decimated last year's Super Bowl losers (& only other remaining undefeated NFC team) the Seattle Seahawks. They clearly won out in every phase of the game and proved, i think beyond all doubt, that they are a serious Super Bowl threat. It's been so great this year watching the Bears play a balanced game. They can suddenly throw and catch and (occasionally) run & for the first time in a long time they don't seem to have a better chance at scoring when they're on defense.

At one point, when i was in Vegas in July, i got it into my head that i should put money down on the Twins to win the World Series and the Bears to win the Super Bowl. Both pretty far-fetched long shots (and still, to be sure, rather unlikely). But i was waylaid with alcohol and failed to put down the money (at least 1 person, my brother Tim, can attest to my intention in this matter). Just think if i'd put those bets down, how wealthy i would be in a few short months. Hundreds of ones of dollars could be mine all mine.