Sunday Afternoon is the new Friday Night

I do not like American Football but I know it. This is an advantage when it comes to betting, because I have no emotional attachment to any Team or Player. The only exception to this rule is a vicious and brutal hatred for the Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots, but I bet on both of them on Sunday and won, so the lesson is clear.

I gave 2-1 on the Patriots and 5.5 points on the Cowboys and I was confident enough to have doubled either bet, which almost came back to bite me with New England but never with Dallas. Hubris got the best of me in the Cowboys/Eagles game, though, because I gave 28 points when they were up 38-10 and lost what I would have won on the original bet. So, another lesson learned. One I should've learned from Beowulf but evidently did not.

Zakis felt good about the Eagles bet from the beginning. I offered to double the bet for 10 points after the Eagles went up 7-0 but he wavered and I backed out. I should've known, though. Tony Romo is a movie star and a below average quarterback on a very good team, the Joe Namath of his day, and Wade Phillips is a perpetual malcontent with no history of winning at anything. But the defense, especially the secondary, is a highly trained killing machine. Terence Newman is like the stealth bomber, only more deadly, and Roy Williams is the first player in recent memory to have a whole rule invented to prevent the kind of ugly and efficient slaughter he routinely hands out on hapless backs and receivers. Finally, of course, Terrell Owens is a madman with an axe to grind and if you can't ever really trust him, you should always fear him. Some days, he'll bowl over every pathetic and scared cornerback in the league and some days, he'll try and overdose on pain pills and then blame the whole thing on his publicist or Bill Parcells. I would never suggest relying on him, especially in the long term, but he gives you a pretty good contrast to Romo and Phillips because it seems like the only thing he cares about is destroying everything that's in his way. For his teammates and coaches, this can be deadly, because sometimes he thinks that they are the ones in his way. But, when he doesn't, I don't know what teammate I'd rather have.

I was counting on Owens being in deadly form when I made that 28 point bet with Zakis, who I knew would take it because he's a gambling addict and a man who Likes Football. I don't think he was relying on the shifty apathy of Wade Phillips, but that's what I was wary of, and that's what lost me the bet. This is why the Cowboys will not win the Super Bowl this year. They have the talent, and nothing would make me happier than watching Roy Williams horse collar Randy Moss in the Big Game, but Phillips is a loser and Romo is a maricon. They have No Chance.

Anyway, American Football is unspeakably boring under normal conditions for anyone with the attention span of an adult, but fun to watch if you fill yourself up with enough wine, cigarettes and marijuana and also have some money riding on the thing. I highly recommend spending some Sunday afternoons this way, and if you can find some place that also shows Premiership, La Liga and Serie A matches, then you should be in regular heaven, as long as you don't have any emotional attachments to outcomes. Never Bet On Your Own Team. It is crushing enough to watch your team lose without knowing you will be hurt financially because of it, and it distorts the purity of your team winning if you're partly excited because of Avarice. That's a deadly sin, you know, though I don't think it's one of the commandments. Either way, there's a circle of Hell for people like me, and probably you, but don't worry because there's no such thing as Hell.

What a fun way to start the thing. Maybe I'll talk about the election next, or baseball. Those are, at least, things I care about for some reason besides $$$.