Dang you, Peyton Manning
(Sports Talk Entry Number Six, Roundtable Edition)

* making my own schedule is nice, and i used this perk to my advantage to ensure i'd be home to watch the nfc and afc championship games next week. games i wanted to see? indy vs. new england & seattle vs. who-cares-as-long-as-seattle wins. games i am stuck with? denver (who i hear is good, but i haven't seen a live snap of all season) vs. pittsburgh (fat running back, underrated quarterback, coolest looking dude in the game troy polamalu). i guess i'll root for pittsburgh. i really won't know, though, 'til the game starts. note to seattle: cover steve smith and i'll get to root for you on sarah's birthday. i am still miffed that peyton sucked it up yesterday. that indy thought they could just turn it on whenever. that they rested their team for a month and paid for it by losing the game in the first 10 minutes. dang you, peyton manning. your team is so pretty to watch. i would have loved to root for you and shaun in the super bowl. oh well. go shaun.

* after attending my first nhl game last night i must say, i have underrated hockey as a spectator sport. not a tv sport. i had heard tv didn't do the game justice, and i had heard right. it's fun to watch world class athletes do their thing in person in any sport, but it was very cool to see top-flight hockey players do their thing. lots of speed. lots of hitting. lots of strategy. lots of action. it's a good thing i live four hours away from nashville or i could waste a bunch of money on the predators. good times.

* don't do this to me, alabama. don't tease me by beating kentucky at rupp. don't make me pay attention again just after i had given up all hope the second after chuck davis' acl popped. dang it. i know what's going to happen. you're going to lose to crappy state or the university of south of your momma and crush me again like you crushed me for the first two months of the season. "i wish i knew how to quit you." (note: i have not seen the gay cowboy movie, but i can't get away from it. everyone loves it. i hear it's "beautiful". "moving". "all that and a bag of chips". if you know me, you know i am not a bigot. i don't believe being gay is a choice, nor a sin. i'll fight for your rights to party and do everything that i get to do because i favor females. but the part of me that rearranges my work schedule around football and hockey will not allow me to climb aboard the gay cowboy bandwagon. call me a caveman. call me a little cynical because i wonder how "moving" the movie would be portrayed as if it were, say, billy crystal and jack palance that were making cowboy love and not two "hot" young studs. call me during brokeback mountain. my phone will not be on silent. i will not be in the theater.)

sorry.