Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Football, Pumpkin Spice, Blogging

Well, it's fall. I know it because I got my first pumpkin spice latte (PSL) this weekend.

If it weren't for the PSL and and NFL, I don't know if I'd survive the darkening season. The weather is beautiful right now, but you know in two months we're going to be freezing our butts off. Thank God for football, which carries us all the way through to the end of January.

The one bad thing about blogging is that it has gotten in the way of my fantasy football career. The year before I started Stamford Talk, I dominated my yahoo league, thanks to my clever snapping up of rookie RB Joseph Addai.

Last season, just after I started the blog in August, I joined a league with friends. Disaster! I enjoyed the personalized trash talking, but blogging took priority over researching players and watching games. I spent a lot of time researching Stamford, learning about blogging, and planning and writing posts. I wasn't able to give my team the time it needed. I finished really low on the totem pole. It was demoralizing.

Although my blogging process is now more streamlined, I still think I spend too much time on the computer to justify spending even more time doing fantasy football. Know what the real problem is, though? Work. Work really gets in the way of my blogging. It's a damn shame. If I did not have to work, I could blog like a pro and play fantasy football and still have time to go to the gym and watch all my reality TV shows. (I just added a new one to TiVo, The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo. It's so trashy and great.)

PS- If you like football, you must read the book Blindside: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. He also wrote Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, about the Oakland A's. Anyway, Blindside goes into why the left tackle is the 2nd highest paid player other than the QBs. Not the running back or wide receiver who scores the points... it's the guy who protects the QB's blindside. The book opens with Lawrence Taylor breaking through the book and breaking Joe Theisman's leg, then follows the story of Michael Oher, a high school kid with great potential. The book goes back and forth between Michael's story and the history of the left tackle. I feel like reading that book again.

What other football books should I read? I haven't read Friday Night Lights yet, should I read that? I love that TV show.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this...I play fantasy baseball, football, and basketball (clearly I have no life) and of the three, football is the one that requires 1/100th of the attention of the other two...one, because games are only once a week, and two, because it's just total points...say, in baseball, you can pick up a speedy guy with a high average, but he might have low home run totals and will hurt you there…it’s a constant balance. But with fantasy football, you just get whoever is going to score the most points that week. Comparatively, it’s easy and I barely even look at my two fantasy football teams…just set the lineups each week, pick up somebody when you have bye weeks or somebody with high point totals is available…I don’t know a ton about football, don’t watch any team but the Giants, and have no idea who is going to have a big week or anything, but I’m 3-0 in one league and 2-0 with a tie in the other (and in that one I drafted Tom Brady in the first round!)…so I don’t consider it to be something I pay a ton of attention to, especially compared to other sports.

Streets of Stamford said...

On top of being a famous Stamford blogger, you're a football fan, too? Rock on! I'm so psyched that my Bills are actually 3-0!!

Greg said...

I'm the only living Rams fan in the country. True story.

Stamford Talk said...

The Bills? Gracious God, where are you from?

I grew up a Redskins fan. I just remembered that I used to always watch Joe Gibbs on the pre-game talk shows (were they on Saturdays, maybe)? Mark May, Dick Butts, they were great. I loved seeing those big men in suits (did they get them in suits? I can't remember yesterday, much less 20 years ago) discussing football.

Letters, you're right, fantasy football is not THAT time consuming in relation to other fantasy sports, but still, an extra hour or two on line on the weekend can be a lot if you're already at 3, 4... you know!

Rams. Rams? Does anyone good play for them?

Streets of Stamford said...

I'm from Long Island, but I started watching football when the Bills were in the midst of their Super Bowl runner-up-ionships. Yes, they never won the big one, but they were a heck of an exciting team to watch.

Nobody circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills! 3-0 BABY!!!

Stamford Talk said...

Jim Kelly, right? Yeah, he was a good QB.

But why not a Giants fan? Sometimes you just gotta go local. I'd have to work awfully hard to be a Skins fan up here... there's no news coverage, and I have no one to share my fandom with.

Speaking of football loneliness, I really, really miss the NFL channel. My stupid Cablevision or whatever I have doesn't offer it.

Also I decided to be a Giants fan bc Tiki was in my year at UVa. My friends were in his first year dorm and only had nice things to say, so... why not.

Anonymous said...

I guess I have the added benefit that I only check fantasy teams at work when I'm bored...I do have that luxury...but still, I doubt I spend more than half an hour a week at it...

Anonymous said...

Nothing to add on football.

But I LURVE those pumpkin spice lattes!

You can count on me to keep it shallow and high cal...

Streets of Stamford said...

Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Don Beebe, James Lofton - and that's just on offense! They had Bruce Smith, Darryl Talley, Cornelius Bennett and Nate Odomes on D. The winningest team of the 90's!

PSL also stands for Personal Seat License, NFL teams' newest way to rip off their fans. $10K just for the right to buy tickets, not for the actual tickets.

Stamford Talk said...

Someone I know was just talking about that personal license thing. Isn't that awful? Like NFL teams and owners don't make enough already?

All those names you just listed are totally unfamiliar to me, but I think that's bc I had no TV from fall 1993-fall 1999. Hm. I sorta missed some stuff in that time period, I guess.

Streets of Stamford said...

Let me see: You missed most of the first Clinton presidency, most of Seinfeld, the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan feud, the O.J. trial, the JonBenet Ramsey circus and Mark McGwire "breaking" the single-season home run record. Not much, really.

Stamford Talk said...

Naw, I actually heard the OJ verdict in a crowded cafeteria at UVa... that was interesting!

But yup I missed most of Clinton! But man, I got a lot done- double major, singing, writing, read a crap load of books.

And now, I am a TV ADDICT. I blame the husband and all the high-tech gadgetry he plies me with.