Football Friday

The high school football season kicks off tonight as Troy travels to Dublin to take on the Coffman 'Rocks. Here are a few notes in celebration of this, the most-anticipated day of the year (for me).

This is my first Football Friday as a resident of Troy since 2000. While I certainly won't miss having to bust my ass and risk speeding tickets just to make kickoff (or the first half in general, for games played south of town), I will kind of miss the drive. It was nice to have a couple of hours to myself, watching the state of Ohio unwind past me on I-75 and grooving to some tunes. I'll get that today, of course, with the drive to Dublin (although it'll be I-70 instead), but in general I'll just have a short drive across town or to a nearby away game site. All things considered, I'd much rather be able to see the pregame festivities and the actual kickoff, but the drive really wasn't such a bad part of the gameday routine.

I've been a fan of Michael Vick since his freshman year at Virginia Tech. I always loved watching him play because of the sheer athleticism he brought to the field. The one and only NFL game I've been to, as a matter of fact, was when his Atlanta Falcons visited the Cincinnati Bengals last season--although I'm a Bengals fan, Brandi bought tickets for that game because she knew I'd want to see Vick. But if all this dogfighting stuff is true, I could give a damn if he ever plays another down of football, and hopefully he'll do some time. I can't imagine how someone can be so callously cruel to an animal, especially a dog. Granted, I haven't seen or read too much about the whole situation, because, frankly, I don't want to know the details. I'm a dog guy, and I can't handle stuff like that. From the limited amount I do know, though, it doesn't look too good for him.

On a much more pleasant note...how 'bout them Reds? It's really, REALLY too bad they couldn't have been playing like this since the beginning of the year. Amazing what a competent manager and at least slightly improved bullpen will do for a team. Oh, and Jeff Keppinger. They're a lot of fun to watch right now, which is pretty impressive for a team that was the worst in baseball for much of the year. It'll be really interesting to see what they do in the offseason. Will Adam Dunn be back? Will they find a permanent spot for Keppinger? Who, among Scott Hatteberg, Joey Votto, and Jorge Cantu, will play first base? Is Homer ready to live up to the hype? Can they find some more bullpen help? Stay tuned.

After being on a waiting list for more than a month, Time Warner finally sent us an HD DVR this week. Of course, they got a little overzealous and sent us two. Still, I'm glad we finally got one. After being without it for so long, I had nearly forgotten how glorious HD is. And it's here just in time for football season. Now, if only they would pick up the NFL and Big Ten networks. No, I don't care about the Big Ten per se (now, if the MAC had a channel of their own, I'd picket in front of Time Warner's home office and go on a hunger strike until they added it), but BG has a couple of games on there this season, and beyond that, I want ANY channel that will show me football. That's just how I roll.

Our garage seems to be infested with crickets. Aside from being annoying, it freaks me out because they're huge and I hate bugs. It's really sort of strange--we never see more than one or two at a time, but each time we kill or force one out, there's another to take its place. I suppose we may need to do something about this.

Despite the crickets, we had our first visitor at our new place last weekend as Brandi's friend Cricket (see the irony here?) came to spend Saturday night with us. That meant, of course, that we spent Friday night (after I got home from Troy's scrimmage) getting the place in suitable order. The three of us had a few drinks here, then went out for Mexican food and then for some more drinks at a couple different bars in Troy. Good times.

I'm also pleased to announce that, to my great surprise, I ran into the Yawp's biggest fan while we were out on Saturday night. I didn't even know I had fans, aside from my mom. David, if you're reading this (and who am I kidding? Of course you are), it was a pleasure. Also, congrats to you and your wife on the birth of your son.