Sports Post

Once again, we're kicking it old school with something I wrote back in September. It's an absolute fucking mess of a post. I think I wrote it after talking to Alex on the phone, I can't exactly remember. Anyway, the gist of the post (if you aren't inclined to read the whole thing or get thrown off track by all the tangents in it, is about missing sports in China. I still don't have internet in my apartment (or heat, or hot water for more than five minutes, not to mention the mold problem...) so I get all my sports in through highlights online when I'm at the bar, which kinda sucks. The post is somewhat relevant today since the Super Bowl just occurred (damn the stupid Steelers...) though alot of the references are a tad dated...

This one is kinda going to be weird post and possibly somewhat personal (or at least as close to personal/inner workings of my head as I’ll allow). So aside from family and friends (obviously), the thing I feel like I’m missing the most right now is American sports. I can replicate American food well enough here. There’s McDonald’s, KFCizzle, TGIFridays, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Subway (possibly, I haven’t seen it yet), and many other restaurants that can give me a fix of the good stuff (and by good stuff I mean chicken fingers and french fries, not heroin). If I could get the internet (hopefully soon!), I can see American news. I brought a TON of DVDs with me. I’ve been watching alot of the Simpsons lately, and I have some Family Guy, AD, Office, and a bunch of movies (on top of what I can buy here. I’ve found a few DVD stores so the selection should be decent throughout my stay here). And I can get into the Western part of town easily enough by cab or bus. However, there is no outlet for American sports here. CCTV has been replaying Olympic events and the Paralympics started last night. The Western bars here (as they did in Beijing), show more English/Australian sports, so alot of rugby, soccer, and Australian Rules Football (I watched that last night for close to two hours. I kinda understand it now, but not really. What I don’t get is what possesses people to play that. I mean seriously, go to Google or something and look up some clips. That shit is just violence for violence’s sake. I saw so many people get helped off the field. Like rugby, there are no pads and it just seems like a bunch of violent collisions. You can literally see people being concussed as it happens. Nothing like watching brain damage live!). Back to the point, no baseball and no football. There’s no way in hell there will be hockey when that starts up. As for basketball, I imagine alot of Rockets games (because of Yao), Nets (I think Yi got traded there...), Lakers (as Alex mentioned on his blog, Kobe is popular here. Real popular. I guess no one here seems to care about rape charges), and maybe possibly hopefully Celtics, with them being the defending champs and all (I saw a kid with a Celtics championship shirt on today. I wanted to give him a high-five, but didn’t because with the language barrier it probably would’ve been a 5 minute process...).

So if you’ve managed to keep everything straight (which considering half of that last paragraph was me going on random tangents, kudos!), my two favorite sports, baseball and football (in that order), are not covered. That sucks. I haven’t seen a Sox score in probably close to the 10 days. They could be in first or third at this point. I wouldn’t know (same goes for my fantasy baseball team. I apparently made the playoffs and didn’t know until three days after they’d started. Awesome). It’s not like baseball is interesting this year, what with the Rays in first, the Yanks possibly missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993, the NL West still a giant clusterfuck, and Centerfield Guy throwing things at Mets fans (one of these days I’ll tell the story of my magical day at Citizens Bank Ballpark with Colleen.... if I haven’t already. I honestly can’t remember and have no means to check). So yea, missing baseball sucks. However, I’m now (finally) going to get to the impetus for writing this: as I type, the Patriots season begins in 3.5 hours. Yep, Week 1. Apparently it started on Thursday. I think the Colts played? Or maybe the Giants? I really don’t give a fuck. Hopefully each of those teams’ quarterbacks have torn ACLs already. I hate the Mannings (seriously how the fuck have they won the past two Super Bowls? I’m getting sick just thinking about this). So yea, the Pats. Week 1. First real game since the Super Bowl. Confession: I didn’t watch any preseason games. I wasn’t ready and couldn’t bear it. You’d think the Celts winning would take away some of the sting, but it didn’t. Or maybe the Sox being in playoff contention. Nope. The feeling I have in the pit of my stomach doesn’t go away. Part nerves. Part fear. I’m not really sure if that properly explains it, but anyone else who has it knows exactly what I’m talking about. On the one hand, I can’t wait for the season to start. The Pats are stacked again on offense (hopefully the line holds up better than it did at the end of the season and Brady’s foot injury is a non-issue), they got younger at linebacker, and it seems like the only real soft spot is the secondary with Samuel gone to the Super Bowl contending Eagles. Pfft. They’ve won 16 regular season games in a row (at least, I’m fairly certain the streak also goes back to two years ago, but I’m not 100% on that), and have the easiest schedule in the league thanks to uniform scheduling. However, part of my is dreading the season and kinda happy I’m so far removed from things. I have class at 8am every Monday morning, which means I have to be up at 630am, so I can’t really stay up late on Sundays (plus I have back to back classes, so I’m working until 1130, meaning I can’t suck it up, stay up all night, then crash after a class). After last year, I’m not sure how ready I am for football again. The Super Bowl was that painful (before people dismiss sports as not mattering, imagine caring about something for half a year, planning your week around that one thing. Think of all the great times and happiness and hope it brought you, then imagine it being smashed to pieces in one night [or more accurately about 15 minutes]). Bah. Sports suck sometimes. Anyway, the point of this rambling inner monologue is I miss sports, especially with Week 1 starting up now. This is the first football season in probably close to 12 years where I’ll be lucky to watch games (then again, if I ever get internet, we all know I’ll most likely not sleep on Sunday nights and catch up the rest of the week because I’m awesome like that). In conclusion, GO PATS!


P.S. As a quick addedum to the point, I almost vomited when I saw the hit on Brady's knee and I was able to see a few of the Sox playoff games on weekends when I'd wake up at like 7am to get my ass to Starbuck's so I could Sling the games. Good times.

P.P.S. I have one more post for tonight that will be new material, so get yourselves ready for that. It's a posting marathon brought to you by the wonderful free wifi at the Air Asia terminal in KL and the wonderful people of McDonald's staying open all night!