24th September 2007
Hi all,
With Lorraine on a set of nightshifts this past weekend I could have happily indulged in one of my favourite pastimes - watching too much sport on television. However the previous weekend had seen defeat after defeat for my teams, culminating in a Sunday evening in which I threw my Sky+ remote control frustratingly from hand to hand countless times as the Dolphins hoisted the white flag against the Dallas Cowboys. So I decided to test myself. What would a weekend without sport be like?
Friday, Midnight: Right after Pardon the Interruption finishes on NASN a Braves game begins. Hold on a moment, I didn't know this was being shown live! Do I abandon this and do it another weekend? Nope, stay true to the intention and turn the TV off.
Saturday, 1am: See, this can be quite productive. I've done goodness knows how many online banking tasks, fully concentrated upon them instead of having half an eye on a screen and half on the TV. It's good to have a bit of discipline.
3am: Erm, how long have I been on YouTube now? Probably time to go to bed.
7am: Up and out, ready to pick Lorraine up from work. These are the times that I hate that my wife doesn't drive.
8am: Back with Lorraine, and she's rightly gone to bed. Chloe's also gone back to bed. I have to wait for a gas engineer to come in and
wake them both up take a look at our boiler. The TV goes off again, avoiding Soccer AM's start at 9am. I curl up on the sofa, and Cookie joins me. With the boiler temporarily not working on an unusually cold September morning I welcome the warmth.
10.30am: Doorbell rings. I wake up from the sofa and let the engineer in, and then out again once he has fixed the boiler. I get Chloe ready, and start to watch the latest recorded edition of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. This was shown two nights ago, but I'm probably watching it two to three days earlier than I would normally.
What am I missing? Football Focus (no real loss), the start of Soccer Saturday (some loss) and probably a CFL game on NASN (don't ask).
3pm: Following Lorraine's lunch I take Chloe out for the afternoon. We're normally out on a Saturday afternoon anyway, as I'm not the type to hang on every piece of news if I'm not at a game. However if I can get the important information I'll gladly take it. Normally anyway, today is different. Music is on in the car, I don't even want to think about scores.
4.45pm: Where I would normally be watching scores coming in, from around the country. Those relating to Palace, directly (Palace themselves) and indirectly (rivals and teams around Palace in the division we're in). I'd also look at scores of the teams my friends support. Tonight I'm blissfully ignorant. Feels strange, and quite liberating. I'm the happiest I've been in weeks at this time on a Saturday.
5pm: The time on College Gameday (NASN) where Lee Corso dons a mascot's outfit and sends a crowd of fans behind him into rapturous cheers or a crescendo of boos. It still cracks me up, so much so that I refused to sacrifice the sight of it. Add another item to my Sky+ queue.
6pm: Dinner. Lorraine is enjoying not being subjected to any sport for a change. I'm tempted to stop this experiment before she gets too used to it.
7.30pm: After dinner (and in the midst of an X-Factor/Ant & Dec marathon) I nip upstairs to check some e-mails. Rather stupidly I opened up a Firefox window, and because the Palace BBS is one of my three homepages I saw the score of the afternoon's game, completely by accident. I'm the happiest I've been in weeks at this time on a Saturday.
(Yes, it was an accident. Don't look at me like that.)
Sunday, 9.30am: Bit of a test here. It's Sunday morning and the temptation is there to go looking for the Palace goals somewhere. Resist! Not easy when we haven't won since the opening day of the season. Furthermore I don't really have a clue what happened in other games yesterday. At any spare moment during a weekend I've got a tendency to gravitate back to Sky Sports News. It's a hard habit to break.
2pm: I'm not really a big watcher of live football when the game doesn't involve Palace, but every so often I'll flick on the TV and stumble upon a game I take an interest in. This afternoon that could be Manchester United vs Chelsea. It could have been, but I chose a quick forty winks instead.
6.20pm: Following a sleep and dinner Lorraine decides to go and wash her hair prior to heading out. After nearly two days I give in to a degree and flick on Sky Sports 2 to see what the latest NFL scores are. Surprise, surprise, the Dolphins aren't losing. Yet.
7.10pm: Just prior to leaving the house I flick back for a latest score. Pathetic really, I just have to know these things. Strangely the Dolphins are playing well, although trailing (as per usual) on the scoreboard.
11pm: Back home. The Dolphins lost, although at least they made it a close-run thing. Heroic defeats, narrow defeats, unfortunate defeats. Too many Dolphins games are summed up in a word followed by "defeat". It isn't good.
Monday, 7am: Preparing to leave for work I have quick scan around the internet to pick up the results I missed. Along with the Palace win and Dolphins defeat were two Braves wins, along with a defeat on Friday night (which at least frees up about 8% of our Sky+ box). It's been my most relaxing weekend for some time, but it's been a strange weekend as well. It's like the line in Swingers: "You wake up every day and it hurts a little bit less, and then you wake up one day and it doesn't hurt at all. And the weird thing is, it's almost like you miss that pain."
I didn't have a chance to miss it for long. My old friend Cris couldn't resist telling me about his Jets beating the Dolphins, in a way only friends can. Roll on next weekend, which I plan on being very much back to normal.
Have a good week!
Tony
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