CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY:

A big thanks to Old as Dirt who sent me one of the best things ever last week in preparation for the big Steelers-Patriots game (which turned out not so big, more on that later). I anxiously tore open the UPS delivered package to find this:

That's right, my very own Steelers hard hat for game day. Nice.

OAD requested a picture with me wearing it so he had "proof that I got you to wear a helmet".

Well, game day came and once again I had reason to hate the Seachickens, or more importantly, that I lived in an NFL city that was not Pittsburgh. Why you ask? Because the NFL has some stupid licensing agreement that dictates that if a team is playing at home then no other games can be televised on the local affiliate. So that meant that even though we pay a bajillion dollars for our cable, I was stuck with the stupid Chicken Hawks versus the Cardinals. Ugh. The worst was when I was watching the NFL pre-game on CBS and at the end when they went to their scheduled televised game they made a point of taunting me, "...and later, most of you will be watching the marquee game of the day between the Steelers and Patriots". Aaaarrghh!!!

Being resourceful though I resorted to old school meets new school by finding the game on an online streaming CBS radio station and hooked it up through my stereo:

After the first quarter I went very old school and took my lady's Walkman and listened to AM 950 in between trees blocking the signal on my ride. The last time I listened to a game on AM radio whilst on a ride I didn't like the outcome of that either. It was November 25, 1995. I know the date exactly because it was when #2 and unbeaten Ohio State with standout players like eventual Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George, Mike Vrable, Shawn Springs, Terry Glenn and Orlando Pace played the 8 and 3 Wolverines in Ann Arbor. It was the day that Wolverine running back Tim Biakabutuka ran all over the Buckeyes, finishing the game with 313 yards and a Michigan upset over the Buckeyes.

The lesson in all of this: no more listening to games that I care about the outcome on a ride. Superstitious? You bet.