Football

Today is the day that most NFL teams begin their season. I've had a problem of late with the sport being referred to as "football". You want a game in which the foot is used on a much more frequent basis? That would be soccer, which is fittingly named football around the rest of the world (as it should be). What the Vikings and what-not play is rugby as far as I'm concerned.

In high school, I'd frequently bet against my hometown team. My Chem teacher once asked why I did this. I replied,"If the Vikings win, I'm happy and don't mind parting with a few bucks. If they lose, I get some moolah to ease my sorrows".

I'm not as big a fan of the team as in years past. For example, this afternoon, the opposing team made a great stop on one of the Vikings players. I literally cheered as it was a fantastic play; it was irrelevant to me what color uniform the guy who pulled it off happened to be wearing.

An interesting article about fans' overidentifying with their favorite team can be found here. The first paragraph:

"It happens to me every time: I tell myself that it's just a game, that these overpaid basketball superstars don't really have any loyalty to a particular team, place, city, etc., that I really shouldn't care about the outcome of the NBA finals. And yet and yet: despite my self-awareness, I can't help but nervously pace during the 4th quarter, as I watch my Lakers surrender a 24 point lead. (The possessive pronouns of sports fan are so odd, considering that Kobe Bryant made more money in the 4th quarter than I will in the next decade.) And then, after the heartbreaking loss, I'm way too upset to sleep. I have to wait for the adrenaline in my blood to breakdown and for my pulse to return to resting state. It's such an annoying state of being, mostly because I know that my mild and meaningless suffering is a complete waste of emotion."

Earlier this decade, I went to a Vikings game with my beloved and a friend of ours. Shortly after the game began, my friend got a footlong hotdog. That thing was monstrous; just like Vikings player Visanthe Shiancoe). If I was a woman, I probably woulda fainted right there.