Bringing the Drama

Back in May I typed about how Minnesota should sign Brett Favre. Now as I sit in a world where New Orleans Saints will host the NFC Championship game against the Vikings, I feel a tinge of regret. Little did I know last spring that Brett Favre would become a direct enemy of my Saints. That he and his team would be standing between the Saints and the Super Bowl.

I have been a Favre fan for as long as I can remember. I always wanted to see him do well in Green Bay. Maybe that admiration was helped by the Saints never playing the Packers in a really meaningful game, but I always thought it was cool that a guy from my general area of the country was one of the greatest QBs of all time.

This past Saturday night, I went to a Mardi Gras ball and had a great time. Someone at our table asked me who I wanted the Saints to play in the NFC title game. I told the lady I wanted Favre because of all the talk this season that has highlighted Favre’s play over Drew Brees. Part of me possibly didn’t want the Saints to play Dallas again, but mostly because I wanted the Saints to take down Brett Favre.

Now the game is upon us. The Saints won’t have to travel to a city up north and face a horribly insulting crowd in the snow. They get to play at home. They get to have their defense back and 91% full strength. They get to have the amazing Reggie Bush back at full strength. They also get Brett Favre, who will take away most of the media hype of this game.

As the game approaches, I am reminded of one of my favorite movie quotes from the film Rushmore for what I think the Saints should do: “Take dead aim on the rich boys, get them in the crosshairs, and take them down”. WHO DAT!

I know, more sports stuff, but really, this was cool. And after reading Brandi’s entry on blogging every day this month, I figure I’ll give it a shot too. So last night I went to my first Hornets game of the season. I had renewed my season tickets last year, and changed my seat location. I didn’t go to the home opener on Friday because I was running the HALF MARATHON the next morning, so my parents sat in my seats. My friend Brandon and I left work and got down to the Arena about 7 pm. The game didn’t start until 8:30 central time because the NBA and ESPN like to make money. If they wanted to show a doubleheader, then why couldn’t they get a game that was being played in CALIFORNIA for the late game?

Back to my new seats….they are way better than last year. I almost had words with a lady two rows in front of me last year when I’d yell about how terrible David West was playing. She turned around a couple of times like she was going to say something, but never did. I kind of yell a lot at games. This year some guy on the front row of my section yells about EVERYTHING, so I’m not the only one. More people seemed in tune with the game, and I didn’t have my neighbor leave during the 3rd quarter no matter what is happening. Plus it’s a snap to get to the seats and to leave, no more walking around half the arena. They also shoot tshirts up to my section and film a lot of the in game video near me. So hopefully I’ll get in the background of some promotion thing and be ‘that guy’. It should be a good location for this year.

After last week’s debacles against the Spurs, Celtics, and Knicks, I wasn’t expecting much. The Hornets really haven’t shown they have learned from that 58 point embarrassment during the playoffs last year. They still play weak defense up front. However, they were playing the Mavericks. The Hornets have kind of owned the Mavs the past couple of years IMO. Even the laziest PF I’ve ever seen in my life, David West, gets up for a game against Dirk. So despite the recent results, I had hope the Hornets would play the Mavs well.

The game was back and forth, and the Hornets jumped out to an early lead, that was eventually whittled away. It was tight at the half, and the third quarter the Hornets opened up another lead. I thought Chris Paul was shooting really well, but they weren’t pulling away like I thought they should. Then they blew it in the 4th quarter. Their defense had multiple breakdowns and then at the end, they were having to hope for a miracle.

The Mavs were ahead 94-92 and the Hornets had the ball. Chris Paul misses a shot, but there was still going to be time on the play clock if they could get a stop. They didn’t. Nobody boxed out 58 year old Erick Dampier who tipped in a shot with 16 seconds to play. Four point lead with 16 seconds, NOT GOOD. The Hornets inbounded and got a quick score. They started intentional fouling which ended up giving the Hornets the ball with 13 seconds left down 3. Instead of passing to an open shooter, Chris Paul tried to show off to Dallas’ back up PG. The refs called an offensive foul. The backup PG was going to the line for 2 shots, then David West gets a tech for whining to the refs about the call. Three foul shots with 9 seconds left. Then the miracle began. Dallas missed ALL THREE FREE THROWS. If you heard a choking sound around 11 pm last night, that was the Mavericks. So 9 seconds left Hornets get the ball and I kept thinking they should pass it to Peja, my favorite Hornet, because even though he had missed all of his shots in the game, he was due to make one. They inbound the ball, Peja catches, shoots and SCORES! GO CRAZY! It was awesome!

Look at Jason Kidd, it’s like he knows what’s going to happen!

The Hornets were able to pull away in OT since Dirk had fouled out and they had all the momentum. Peja didn’t score another basket in OT, so he ended up with 3 points off the game saving 3 with six seconds to play. Thanks to the game starting so late, and then having to go drop Brandon off at his car, I didn’t get home until after midnight. Not cool NBA, not cool.

I’ve played fantasy football and basketball with a guy I knew from Jr High and High School since probably 1999. In our football league, I am the two time defending champ, this year going for the three peat. Yesterday before the Saints/Falcons game, I was down 60 points in my game (37-97) to this guy who was tied with me for first place in our division. Sixty points is a lot, even when you have 4 ‘players’ going for you (Colston, Shockey, Turner, Saints D). In my work league, I was also far behind (76-110), but I only had one guy playing and he was going to have to score 4 TDs and run for 150 yards for me to have a chance. Considering it was Pierre Thomas and the Saints use a RB by committee philosophy, that kind of performance was going to be near impossible. The 60 point deficit was at least possible, but not very likely.

Did I mention it was SAINTS VERSUS FALCONS ON MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL? I rushed home and was able to hit the gym, stop by the store, and make it home with 10 minutes to spare before kickoff. I was stoked. I even drank beer (only one) on a weeknight, which I haven’t done in a long time. I thought the Saints could win by two TDs rather easily, especially since the Falcons were coming off a beat down from the Cowboys. The game started off and the Falcons looked good. Their defense was tougher than I thought, because hadn’t they just given up 300+ to Tony Romo last week? The Saints battled back, and right before halftime got two quick scores, including a INT returned for a TD by the defense. They were up two TDs at the half, and miraculously I had gone from down 37 to 97 to down 79-97 in the fantasy game.

I was never really worried about the real game, ever. Even when the Falcons jumped out to the early lead, or when they made the Saints offense look bad. I had just watched the Saints come back from down 21 last week, and we were at home, surely they would find a way to win. This season’s team just feels different. The second half started and it was tight. ATL was driving down only 4 and I thought for sure they would get a score. Then, the Saints intercepted and killed the drive. They drove down for a TD to go up 11 late in the 4th quarter. With each fantastic catch on that drive by Shockey and Colston, I crept closer and closer to the fantasy win too. The Saints seemed to have the game locked up, but could I also pull out this fantasy football miracle?

The ensuing Falcons’ possession, I was down 94-97. Things worth 2 points are sacks, fumbles, or interceptions. Two sacks and I win! Then the Saints pass rush knocked the ball out of Matt Ryan’s hands and they recovered the fumble. That counted for a sack AND a fumble, four points, I went ahead 98-97! The refs then reviewed it and called it an incomplete pass. I hate that rule. It went back to 94-97 and the Falcons eventually kicked a FG which then made it 93-97 because the defense gave up more points. ARGH!

The onside kick comes, and all the Saints have to do is recover it and then kneel down. Then the backup TE kind of muffs the FALLING ON THE BALL thing and the Falcons recover. Down eight points with less than a minute left, this thing is over, even with the Falcons having the ball. The fantasy game was not over though! Two sacks ties it. The Saints then got a sack, it was 95-97! ONE sack, ONE interception, just ONE thing would tie the game. I was hollering at the television for something to happen! On 2nd down from midfield with 11 seconds left, Matt Ryan heaves it downfield and the Saints intercepted with 3 seconds left in the game. The fantasy game was tied 97-97! The Saints were officially SEVEN AND O! Life was good, and it was 1 am before I actually went to sleep.

Sunday morning I woke up and went to early church. I hadn’t been to early church in a long time, but this Sunday happened to also be the week my mom was doing the scripture reading. The sermon was once again not really on the mark for me, but I enjoyed being up early on a Sunday seeing friends and family at church. After church I went to the store to pick up some things, and on my way home thought I would stop at the Quiznos near my house. I hadn’t been in a while and I wanted to stop off and have someone make me lunch. About 11 I pulled into the parking lot and parked the car. I started walking up and noticed a ‘For Lease’ sign in the window. QUIZNOS WAS CLOSED! The tragedy comes from the fact that now the only food places on my side of the interstate are Krystal and Sonic. Of course, there’s tons of stuff across the interstate but when there’s a lot of traffic, it’s not the most convenient trip to make. I went home and made myself a PB&J.

My grad school class project team has been meeting each Sunday night. I am the CEO of our fake company, and Sunday I was also up in the rotation for typing out the agenda and leading the meeting. Since the Saints game was not until 3, I set about to get that night’s meeting organized. I edited some of the final presentation slides and typed the email out to the team. The plan was for everyone to edit the presentation and send out their edits during the week, but I guess with the test we had last week no one really had time.

I had about 2 hours before the Saints game, so I went out to try to cut my grass. My lawnmower had to have some maintenance done to it because I had overfilled the oil. I had to replace the spark plug and the air filter, which wasn’t a big deal. With all the stuff that’s been going on with going out of town and working late and studying for tests, I had not been able to do anything with my yard. After a struggle to add oil and figuring out what the dipstick was actually saying, I had the oil done during the Saints game. I would go out to the garage during commercials and check on the oil, and add some. At halftime, I went out and tried to cut part of my backyard. The game had been going terrible for the Saints, but I had not lost all hope yet. I was outside cutting the grass and emptying the grass catcher when I heard loud cheering in my neighborhood. I remembered meeting Marlon and him telling me the Saints party was at his house Sunday and realized they were cheering, so obviously the Saints had done something really great. (it ended up being Darren Sharper’s INT return for a TD at the beginning of the 2nd half). The cool thing was it wasn’t just that crowd that I heard, it was multiple people from multiple houses in my neighborhood. I thought that was pretty cool, the community feel. That was one of the things I liked so much about the 2006 season.

I finished up with the lawnmower and went inside to watch the rest of the game. I had my team project meeting at 6 pm, and the game was still going on. I was going to have to multitask. The meeting started and I was steering us very well. I was watching the game on TV that was behind my laptop, so I didn’t miss much. I saw Reggie’s leap for a TD and everything. When Carney missed the XP, I remember back when he missed the XP after the most incredible last second play in Saints history. When they went ahead 40-34 I thought “it’s only 6 points! They need more!” Then I saw Tracy Porter get the INT and run it back for a TD and they locked the game away.

During all of this, I was leading this team project meeting. We’re assigned a mentor who ties in to all of our meetings. At the beginning of the meeting, he asked me if I was watching the Saints game. I told him I was and that if I randomly yelled out it had to do with the game not the meeting. At one point while I was typing something and said “NICE!” when the Saints scored, then had to cover saying “I said ‘Nice’ when referring to Drew Brees throwing another TD, not really this slide” which was about marketing or something. Once the game ended it was easier to focus on the meeting, and we actually finished half an hour early. The meeting ran really well, and I got props from the mentor guy. After such a crappy week last week (except for IMGL), the weekend was awesome. I need to find an SI with the new Saints cover!

Check it, so I’ve been reading about some new phones coming out, which made me realize I have a backlog of pictures on my phone that I needed to unload. So I emailed a couple to myself today and figured I could post them here, because I figure it’s better than not writing anything for 3 weeks.

Alright, this one was taken on the first day half of the new Twin Span bridge opened in July. The original Twin Span was 2 lanes each way, and was destroyed by Katrina. The new one is higher off the water and 3 lanes. When they finish it I would assume we’ll be able to fly across it like we did the old one. Anyway, the first day it was open I drove across it on the way home from work, and it was kind of exciting. I was one of the first people to cross over on the new bridge! I’ve been watching the progress of the bridge obviously since it started, so it was cool to finally get to drive across.

I went to the LSU/ULL game a couple of weeks ago and snapped a few pictures. If you follow me on Twitter you may have seen a couple. This one I didn’t show, but it doesn’t make it any less weird. This guy was standing around Mike’s habitat, and when I saw the name he had chosen for his customized LSU baseball fashion jersey, I laughed and took the picture. IT IS MISTER DAZZLING!

That wasn’t the only picture I took where I thought “Some LSU fans are hard to accept”, like the lady who had two big poodles and decided to shave LSU into their coats. Seriously. I have photographic proof and will show you when I get around to uploading them.

Friday morning my friend Chad and I went out to the Saints’ training camp. It was the first time I had ever gone, so I didn’t know how many people would be there, what time, what all to expect. We got there about 8:10, about 5 minutes after the gate opened and easily parked the car. We walked in both bringing our cameras, and picked up a roster sheet. It’s a good idea to give people roster sheets because practice jerseys don’t have names and some of those guys will be cut by the end of the month.

They had concessions out there, so when we saw the smoothie booth giving away free Saints shirts, we both bought a smoothie. It was okay, but nothing special….the shirt though was cool and would come in handy later. As Chad was standing by himself under one of the trees, some guy came up and started talking to him. I walked up and started talking to the guy too. I find it cool that people can talk to random strangers at things like sporting events, but when you walk away, don’t come back. After the guy left, a few minutes later he came back. The conversation just was not the same, and it was awkward. Thankfully he was only there a few minutes.

This was the first time I had really used my camera for anything other than stuff around my house. I left the kit lens at home and just brought my zoom lens and figured that’d be good enough….and it was. There were two fields, and where we sat was along the sidelines of the field farthest from the actual buildings at the practice facility. Rumor was that the team would be practicing on the other field, closest to the buildings, but when the team came out the starters did a walk through on the field in front of us. That was cool, and we got to see the players up close.

THEN the QBs and WRs did some drills right in front of us, so I was getting some great pictures.

They finished doing the passing drills and then went to the other field to do warmups. After the warmups, the kick returners came over to our field and shagged punts. I noticed Reggie Bush was the only guy not to catch a punt, and later read that he was taking practice off, which explained it. He was dressed out though, so whatever.

I got pictures of pretty much all the big names, but my boy Scott Fujita was not at practice, so no photos of him. Jeremy Shockey seemed to chill by sitting on the Gatorade cooler when he was not practicing. Good thing, we don’t want him dehydrating again.

Later in the practice, I decided to drape my head in the tshirt we had gotten and it made a big difference. I was so much cooler. I’m definitely going to do that again should I go back, and I’ll do it from the beginning. No sense in waiting until 10 am to do it.

About 10:15 or so, the team moved to the far field and started running actual plays. The pictures were harder to get since we were so far away, and we couldn’t really see anything anyway. We had been out there about 2.5 hours, and since neither of us were into getting anything autographed, so we left about 10:30. I do want to try to make it back another time this month, because it was a fun time being out there, taking pictures, watching the team up close. The people out there were pretty cool too.

(to see all of the pictures i posted, go here)

i saw this commercial last night during the X Games. i cannot wait for football to start.

about Madden, i haven’t really played Madden since ‘94 came out for SNES when i was in high school. i bought a version for the Wii, but i don’t really play it. however, this commercial is awesome because it’s filmed at Saints camp, which i’m hoping to go visit for a practice or two very soon.