Any Given Sunday

It's 10pm, the guests have gone home, Kristin and I cleaned the house, and I have water boiling for a french press of coffee to help me get through a long night of work.

Obviously my prediction (and that of most everyone who isn't a Giant fan) was wrong, but that's why I don't bet on sports. You can watch every game of every week, know the stats of all the players and the history of the game, and then still be completely wrong come Sunday. That's what makes the game great.

I don't have time to really write about the game right now (or the party, which was great) but I will say that Eli made me a believer tonight. This morning I would have told you I doubted he could tie his own shoelaces. But after the play that shall henceforth be known as The Great Eli-scape, I'm a convert. The dude can ball. Two touchdown drives against that defense in this game is not something an average quarterback can do. It's a shame Smith cost him that interception, otherwise his QB rating would have been near-perfect.

To the Giants fans among you -- especially my sister -- congrats. I still believe the Giants would have lost the NFC Championship had it have been at Seattle instead of Green Bay, but your team played great tonight and was probably the only team in the NFC who had the defense to spot the Patriots.

And for the Patriots fans, let me just say that I was pulling for you. Not that I necessarily didn't want the Giants to win, but that I was hoping to never have to see those old crotchety champagne-popping '72 Dolphins again. Their schtick stopped being funny back in the 90's and I was really hoping that we had seen the last of them. But it was a great game so I can't complain. And our guests were happy the Giants won so that made me happy.

There was one disappointing aspect of the game though and that was the cut-aways to Peyton Manning in the luxury box. There weren't enough of them. I made an early bet in the 1st quarter that they cameras would pan to Peyton at least 10 times during the game. They did it 9 times. And because of that I lost four football cards and a shot at winning the growler of Snoqualmie IPA that serves as one of our door prizes.

Oh well... I make foolish bets throughout the game with my cards so the guests can win anyway... like betting half my stack that "the next commercial will be for Victoria's Secret". I was about an hour premature with that one. But I'm guessing those girls are used to guys being a bit premature with them.

Ahem... on that note I'm going to get back to work.