TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

After an impressive five win week last week, coincidently attached to the week in which I finally decided to look at my current standings, I’m off to an equally impressive start this week.

Thursday
Bears +3 at Redskins: Two weeks ago, this game looked like a real downer on the NFL Network schedule. Today it’s two teams really in a must win spot to keep any bit of playoff hopes alive. Sadly (or excitingly, depending on who you’re a fan of) the last playoff spot is still wide open in the NFC. At the very least the NFL managed to take another important game from its fans. Way to work it, guys… nothing like taking a game with possible playoff implications and making so the fewest people possible see it. All that said, I think Campbell falls apart under the Bears’ pass rush… even more than Grossman falls apart in a normal game. Bears outright.

Sunday

Dolphins +7 at Bills: Well, at least the Dolphins are back into into their comfortable underdog position. The Dolphins are really in a tough spot now. Every team they face aren’t going want to be the team that loses to them first… in fact, being underdogs was enough to fire the Jets into scoring 44 points. The Jets did that to them at home. Now they go on the road to Buffalo, where they never win anyway, and are supposed to stay within a touchdown? I don’t think so. Bills cover.

Rams +6 at Bengals: Is this really the first total garbage game of the season? Two teams with absolutely nothing left to play for in December? There had to be one previously that I’ve forgotten. I hate picking these games because it’s really left to guess what’s going to happen at the end of the day. I still can’t really pick the Rams and expect it to work out. Bengals cover.

Cowboys -10.5 at Lions: I just have to surrender and start picking the Cowboys when my first instinct tells me they’re going to cover a spread. With the Lions rapidly falling apart, I see no reason why Tony Romo won’t throw a few more of those “how the f*ck is he that wide open” passes to TO. Cowboys cover.

Raiders +10 at Packers: My Raiders crystal ball tells me *peers* Packers cover.

Bucs -2.5 at Texans: Bandwagon. Bucs cover.

Panthers +10 at Jaguars: Jaguars cover in the battle of the expansion cats.

Giants +3 at Eagles: I’m only half-surprised the Eagles are favored here. I’d be curious to know how the spread will shift when the final call is made on McNabb. If he’s playing, which way is the spread going to go? The Giants are actually going in to this game in pretty rough shape. Their pleasant surprise runningback is out for the season with a broken leg. Their number one receiver still really isn’t practicing. Their supposed number one runningback can’t seem to answer the bell from week to week. Worst: the Eagles are playing a must win game at home. I’d like to think the Giants will build on the success they had last week and just run from the no-huddle the entire game. I’d also like to think the Giants pass rush will be able to dominate the Eagles line just like earlier in the season. Giants outright.

Chargers -2 at Titans: The fact that the Chargers never show up for away games is a concern. It’s also a concern because the Chargers are my first instinct in a Titans game. Chargers cover.

Vikings -7 at Niners: The Vikings are going to start a push to the playoffs now and I’m not really sure if any of the crappy teams left on their schedule are going to be able to stop them. Vikings cover.

Cardinals +6.5 at Seahawks: Have the Seahawks beaten any good team by more than 4 this year? Cardinals +6.5.

Chiefs +6.5 at Broncos: Stick a fork in the Chiefs. Broncos cover.

Browns -3.5 at Jets: I find it amazing that the Browns are having a decent year and I have found them on television exactly once. Stupid have two local market teams. This spread would be a helluva lot worse had the Jets not put up 44 last week, which makes it an easy pick: Browns cover.

Steelers +14.5 at Patriots: This spread was 6 until word got to the Patriots that various Steelers started guaranteeing victory. It’s really a testament to the Patriots that the third best team in the AFC is a 2 touchdown dog to them. All that said, the Patriots defense is starting to wear down a bit. They’ve given up a total of 52 points the last two weeks. If this spread was 13.5, I’d probably pick the Patriots… but I’ll stab myself in the face if I end up picking the Patriots and they win 35-21. Steelers +14.5.

Colts -10 at Ravens: One of two things are going to happen to the Ravens this week. Either they will unify themselves, refocus, and make them realize that they almost beat the best team in the league and would have save for a bonehead move from the sideline. Or: the meltdown will continue into this week. Honestly, I don’t know which way it’s going to go. As my first though here is that the Ravens are going to cover, I have to go with Colts cover.

Monday

Falcons +5.5 at Saints: Ah the “we have no clue” spread. My first instinct is Saints cover… then I had start overthinking and thinking this game has something like 23-20 written all over it. When I overthink I usually lose. Saints cover.

As I was filling the sheet out, I realized I picked 13 of 16 favorites. This terrifies me for some reason.

Tuesday, November 20 2007

8:00 am: We’re off. After the absolute drenching we got on the ferry, pretty much all our clothes are hanging over anything available in an attempt to dry them off. It didn’t work. We pack up our wet clothes in our suitcases and get ready.

9:00 am: We head to the airport. Our flight out is at 12:40pm. Way too much time.

9:15 am: We get to the airport. After finding the JetBlue check-in line, there are exactly 3 people ahead of our group.

9:40 am: We get to the security line. There are two people ahead of us.

9:45 am: Time to kill. I take a moment to bask in my rightness… then I realize that I have 179 more minutes of rightness to bask in.

10:00 am: There’s a Burger King at the airport. Fun Lost In Translation of the weekend. The cashier says: “Would you like apple OR pumpkin pie with that.” instead of “Would you like an apple or pumpkin pie with THAT?”. I say apple, assuming in an odd south of the border twist that they were included with breakfast. In fact, they were not and her statement was actually a question. In other news, the apple pie was delicious.

10:30 am: Breakfast is done. Only two hours and ten minutes left. It’s a burden being right all the time.

11:30 am: ugh.

12:30 pm: I’m bored enough that I take out my Blackberry to check my work e-mail. Kids… I’m bored.

12:40 pm: We board the flight… fuggin finally… and we are the only plane taking off that HOUR.

5:15 pm EDT: Land.

5:30 pm: We are now aimlessly wandering JFK looking for the rental car station. Little did we know that we had to take the AirTrain a few stations. Fun story… we weren’t able to find a rental car anywhere in the city being the day before the big Thanksgiving Exodus. However, Ms. L has the ability to get a car through her company and one of the car rental companies is apparently required to find one for her. So, we got a car. As we were in line for our last minute car, no less than 3 guys came in asking for cars. They got shot down. I giggled.

5:35 pm: A white PT Cruiser… cute.

6:00 pm: I discover that the bridge to Staten Island costs $9.00. Nine friggin dollars to go over a bridge. Amazing.

6:45 pm: Ah Manhattan during rush hour… where 20 miles takes more than an hour.

6:50 pm: The original plan was just to go upstairs, repack the luggage, get the cat, and take off. Due to the fact that everything in the luggage was still wet. Instead, it turned into go upstairs, pack new bags, get the cat and go off.

7:15 pm: The cost for parking in Battery Park City for 22 minutes: $16. I love this town.

7:45 pm: We pick up our passenger… one of Ms. L’s other co-workers who is splitting the car with us to drive her home.

7:50 pm: Two girls who haven’t seen each other in 6 days can really talk.

8:15 pm: and talk.

8:40 pm: and talk.

9:00 pm: and talk.

10:15 pm: Passenger dropped off. My ears are ringing.

10:30 pm: After 5 hours of flying and now 5 hours of driving, I’m fading fast. Ms. L uses this opportunity to put on Christmas Music… because that will keep me from driving the car off the Thruway.

11:45 pm: FINALLY at my parent’s house. We’re picking up bedding and an air mattress to bring down to my townhouse since all that’s in there now is the mish-mash of mismatched furniture that tends to collect in an apartment no one’s really in. Fun story, I’m currently fending off a full bedroom set for the extra bedroom.

12:00 am: I drop off Ms. L and the cat. Since no trip upstate is complete without an absurd hour trip to the super market, I go to Price Chopper for cat food.

12:15 am: I once again amaze myself at the absurdly cheap prices in upstate super markets as I get my normally $5 cat food for $3.50.

12:30 am: Back to my place… unload all the suitcases and start separating laundry into the “moderately wet and dirty” and “really wet and dirty”.

12:45 am: Shower… it’s a Top 5 shower*

1:00 am: I start setting up the air mattress for Ms. L. I take out the air pump… and it’s got no cord. Only batteries. I actually stared at the box for 10 minutes, praying it was lying to me.

1:10 am: Back to the super market. I’ve never been so dejected.

1:30 am: Finally bed.

I consider this the end of my “vacation.” The rest of this was basically your standard “home to see the fam” weekend. Was a good time.

* A Top 5 shower goes back to a trip to Montreal I had in college. It was one of those stupid “Let’s go to Montreal” trips where you have nothing planned, but just pile in the car and take the 2 hour drive. We left on Saturday at like 10 am, bar crawled for most of the day and night, went back and slept about 8 people to a single hotel room, and drove back on Sunday. The shower that I took that night, after a day full of travel and drinking filth felt better than any shower I’d ever taken until that point… it was amazing. This came up in conversation and someone agreed with me and said it was one of the Top 5 showers he’d ever taken. Since then, those kind of showers have come to be called Top 5 Showers.

Monday, November 19th, 2007

There’s no good reason to do a diary of this day, basically because nothing interesting happened. We took the 11 am Ferry of Doom (everyone did, actually… the rest of our party who wanted to take the 8 am ferry backed out when it was pouring rain) in the rain which soaked all of us and every stitch of my luggage. The ferry ride back was relatively calm, even with the pouring rain. For future reference: Rain != wind. We followed with yet another cab ride to Cancun this one was only $90 for 7 people instead of $225 for 9 people… and they say travel agents are worth it.

We got to Cancun at about one in the afternoon and checked in to the well-known Mexican hotel chain “Mariott”. Ms. L and I bailed on the rest of the party and pretty much spent the day together. It was actually somewhat disappointing how much like the US Cancun really is. In Cozumel I could at least tell we were in another country. In Cancun I stayed in a Mariott and took a cab to the Mall. On the way to the Mall we passed a second mall which featured Prada, Louie Vitton, and other high end stores. The mall (mall isn’t exactly fair… all the stores weren’t connected indoors. It was a mall if the hallways between the stores were outside) we actually went to was full of Gap and such and we could have grabbed a great Mexican lunch at Chili’s. As it was, we stopped at what seemed to be the only Mexican restaurant in the place and were served to what was obviously chain food. The only benefit to the place is that the seats were right on the boardwalk. In other news, there was a boardwalk. Going back, Ms. L would not take the Cancun Drunk Bus… which is just buses that run and up and down the main drag and only cost 6.5 pesos (about 60 cents) and instead elected to make me take a cab in both directions… about $10. In an amusing turn of events, the girl who rides the New York City subway alone at all hours of the day is scared of a bus full of tourists in broad daylight. Go figure.

We went back to the hotel around 4pm and our traveling party had headed into town to do a bar crawl. When I first discovered this, I was annoyed. When I later discovered that they went to five different bars and took a cab to each one, I was less annoyed. Please note: all of my traveling party lives in New York City and takes public transit on a daily basis. The buses are basically MTA buses… and I’m the only one willing to take the Bus that costs pocket change.

Instead, Ms. L and I kind of relaxed on our balcony. We took a quick dip in the pool just to say we did it and then went to a pretty good dinner at a place called the Crab Shack across from the hotel. Afterward, we retired onto our balcony with some Coors Light (yes, Coors Light… Ms. L drinks nothing but Corona and Coors Light and, believe it or not, the random store across the street had no Corona) and listened to the water. It was a nice night.

Of course, we later discovered that our travel group had spent about 500 pesos ($50) on cabs to go to between four or five bars and then came back to the hotel and ordered in a very Mexican meal of Domino’s pizza. Then the obvious debate of “what time to go to the airport” comes up. I realize that we’re flying out of a tourist destination on a Tuesday and likely will be the only outgoing people in the entire airport. I’m over-ruled and we decide to give ourselves the full three hours.

I spent the tail end of the last night, as I usually do on a vacation, sitting by myself. Ms. L had decided to head to bed to give herself enough time to get up and get some coffee in the morning. I decided to spend the last hour out on the balcony listening to the waves come in. There was a full moon, making the water and sand weirdly bright. If anything, it made me realize how much I miss my old apartment and the nice view of the water it had. Being in Mexico that time a year almost made me forget how BRUTAL the weather was in late August.

All in all, I had a great time and I’m glad some guy I met twice decided to invite me to his wedding.

Tomorrow: the longest day of my life.

I’ve never snorkled. There’s a few reasons for this. 1) I’m not a huge beach guy, so my vacations don’t usually take me to places where snorkling is available. 2) When I do go to locations where snorkling is available, getting up at some ungodly hour to pay some shady individual some absurd number of pesos to take me on a boat and shove me in the water so I can look at coral isn’t my idea of relaxing and 3) I’m not hugely into any trips that involve me getting up at 7 am when I’m ostensibly on vacation.

Little known fact about TDL: his perfect vacation involves the following: Get up between 8:30 and 9:00 am, have a huge greasy breakfast, spend about 4 hours under an umbrella on a beach not too far from a waiter who will notice when my drink is empty, go in to lunch, spend another couple hours re-performing step 2, nap, shower, dinner, drinking. Repeat. I don’t like sitting near pools (I can do that here) and I don’t like sitting out in the blazing sun and sweating. Gimme a beach chair under an umbrella and I’m a happy guy.

That said: I’m perfectly willing to go snorkling when it’s 1) at 11 am, 2) has open bar, and 3) free. The bride and groom, as a thank you for everyone who traveled out of the country for their wedding forwent (is that a word) the traditional after-wedding brunch for a snorkling cruise.

Sunday, November 18th 2007

9:00 am: Lovely, included breakfast. Same stuff as yesterday but I opt for pancakes and scrambled eggs with sausage and cheddar. Open Breakfast is possibly the greatest thing ever.

10:30 am: After a tough mid-morning of retiring to my room to drink coffee and read on my balcony, we head out to grab a cab to the ferry pier.

10:55 am: I am thrilled to see our new boat has two things to float on. I desperately hope this will not lead to another episode of ferry from hell.

11:15 am: We are staying close to the shore, which is good. We get a speech before another episode of iPod DJ begins. The beer of choice for this trip is Bohemia and the guide informs us they have 48 cases on board……. for 32 people. In addition there are Margaritas, soda, and water. He lets us know that they usually don’t open the bar until after the snorkeling, but then he remembers we’re in Mexico and there are no laws or safety regulations.

11:20 am: As we go along the shoreline of Cozumel, it strikes me again how little of this part of Mexico is undeveloped. When we went to Cancun a few years back, we went to visit the ruins at Chichen Itza. It was about an hour bus ride out the island and the highway we were on was literally cut through the middle of a jungle. There was nothing else but this road. Going along the shore-line of Cozumel it’s basically resort followed by vast amounts of scrubland followed by a couple of houses, followed by scrubland, followed by a resort. I mean look at it.

12:00 pm: Four beers deep, we get to the first snorkeling location. I get myself a mask, lifejacket, and snorkel and take my shirt off, unleashing the pasty awesome.

12:30 pm: I go in the water and put the mask on. There’s fish and rocks. I’m somewhat unmoved. One cool thing, there are fish kind of swimming around near the group near the surface. I stare one down and swims away. That’s right, lil bitch.

12:45 pm: Back on the boat.

1:30 pm: We get to the second location. Pretty much the same as the first location. I do, however, remember that I put no sunscreen on my back. It’s going to get ugly.

2:00 pm: We’re back on the boat heading toward a random beach bar that’s apparently associated with the guys who run the boat.

3:00 pm: They run the boat basically up the beach and everyone gets off. We have about an hour to get lunch, more beer, and then use the amenities at the private beach.

3:30 pm: I find a hammock.

4:15 pm: back on the boat.

5:00 pm: And back to the mainland with no major injuries. My travel group makes plans to go back home, shower up, and head back into town for dinner. At this point, we are all ungodly sick of the hotel menu.

5:05 pm: I interpret shower as “nap.”

7:00 pm: Ms. L and I go downstairs to the bar. There are already a couple of folks there watching the Sunday Night Football Game.

7:45 pm: The Patriots score a third touchdown five seconds into the 2nd quarter. I inform one of Ms. L’s Bills fan co-workers that holding the Pats to only 2 TDs in the first quarter was kinda like a moral victory.

8:15 pm: We head out to dinner. When we get out of the cab, I realize that I still haven’t gotten any cash.

8:30 pm: Ms. L and I head into the town. There is some kind of festival going on. I’m not really sure what they’re celebrating but we are one of like 10 tourists walking around the festival. There’s music and random dancing going on. There’s also random food carts around the festival. It occurs to me that I really don’t need a sit-down dinner. I would be more than happy to wander around this festival and sample random carts of goodness, but Ms. L is not as adventurous. Instead, we turn into “white people looking for a bank” which, really, could have been the start of a good horror movie.

8:45 pm: I find an HSBC. I have a moment where it starts conversing with me in Spanish. Being from New York City, I call this “Tuesday.” I ask for pesos and get yelled at with “what are you going to do with those?” I dunno… I”m in Mexico. Spend them?

8:50 pm: We walk back through the festival around the other way. I’ve marked about 12 carts that I would much rather go to than to a sit down dinner. You have to remember: I eat out of random food carts about 3 days a week… whether it be lamb and chicken over rice, a burger, steak, dirty water dogs, or pizza. If you had to ask me what the perfect way to sample the local fare would be, I’d answer you that it’d be going around to a bunch of taco carts and chowing down.

9:00 pm: Sadly, we go back to the restaurant: Pancho’s Backyard. The building was built in the 1600s and the steak was delicious. I also finished off two frozen margaritas and only one was necessary. I should have gotten Mahi-Mahi but chickened out. The inside of the restaurant was beautiful, including a small indoor pond complete with waterfalls and fish.

10:30 pm: We head back to the hotel. We then get into an argument with other traveling companions about when to head back to Cancun tomorrow. They want to take a 8 am Ferry of Doom. I’d prefer to take an 11 am Ferry of Doom. We settle on meeting the two 7 am-ers in Cancun around noon.

Tomorrow: To Cancun we go.