Why I Hate the NFL

Ah, football. 365 days a year, and not just on the NFL Network, America lives, breathes, and sleeps football. At least that side of America that likes sports. And this irritates me. There are a lot of reasons I'm not a huge NFL fan.

1) I grew up in a place where the NFL's popularity sits behind hockey, baseball, basketball, college basketball, college football, and maybe even college hockey. And no, it wasn't Canada. But you're close.

2) I want to watch the games during the season and then forget about the sport when the season's over. That's part of the pleasure for me. If college football were on all the time, would Illinois vs San Diego State on September 2 be entertaining? Probably not. Baseball is great in April and May, in large part because it's a fresh season. There's hope for every team.

3) The ridiculously close games. "Oh, the skill level is just so high that any team can win in any given week." Maybe. But I don't believe that 2-14 teams should have a chance to tie or win on their last possession every single week.

4) Pro football, more than any other sport, requires a lot of non-game knowledge. I have to be honest, I do not know any free agency rules, couldn't tell you the salary cap, can't STAND the pre-draft, draft, and post-draft coverage, and have never understood the franchise tag. And I don't want to. I want to watch the games and root for my team.

Which brings me to the final point for now...

4) Who are these guys on my team? I'm a Bears fan, because the Lions are bad and were never on TV when I was a kid due to blackout restrictions. I am a very casual NFL fan unless the Bears are good, but I've been better since 2001. The Thomas Jones deal (sorry for linking a column instead of a news story, but this is how I feel) was insane. There's no continuity. I feel ancient for saying this, but I want guys to want to stay with the same team for a while.

There's too much off-field businessy crap in the NFL. The NHL's adoption of the salary cap is going to make this happen in that league too, and I am distraught about that. I hate the salary cap. It's pointless. I'm tired of the people who say "you root for the jersey, not for the players." No, maybe YOU do, but I don't. I root for Michigan guys, Big Ten guys, and so forth. And the Bears. I will continue to root for Thomas Jones. Financial decisions are a fact of pro sports, but why should the league be able to decide that you have to field a new team every season? It's not bad that some teams have more money than others. What's bad is the sweeping view among fans that every team should have a chance to win the championship every season. That's not reality. Baseball has somehow beaten the odds in this battle. I was really happy to see the Tigers beat the Yankees last year. Money doesn't equal championships.

Maybe these are sour grapes, but I think that more and more people are on this wagon, and I'm happy about that. The league's flap with Comcast and other cable providers over the NFL Network made me feel good.

End of rant.

Passion

I started walking from Foggy Bottom yesterday. It's about 10 blocks from my office, which is a really good walk in the morning. It gives me time to think, which I feel like I can't do on the train. And I realized something yesterday morning - I don't really have a lot of passion for what I do. I don't dislike my job, and I feel like I'm pretty good at it, but I'm not that passionate about it. Ironically, I think I was passionate about my old job, but the organization was so terrible that I couldn't stay there any longer.

I have wondered for the longest time how people become so successful so young, and I believe that's the dividing line. I know I have a ton of ability (or potential, but I hate that word), but I think passion is really what makes you who you are. And just like leadership, you can't learn passion. It has to be a natural fire.

But this got me thinking - have I ever been the type of person who wakes up in the morning anxious to start the day and make a difference? And I don't know that I have ever been that way. Has it hindered me? Am I worse off than I would be if I couldn't wait to begin each day? I don't want to die never having been passionate about my life's work, but I don't want to die because I'm passionate about it either.

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

I've listened to this about five times now, and I think it managed to live up to the hype. Black Mirror is a fantastic first single, and the album stays strong all the way through. Between this and the new Bloc Party, there are now 2 excellent albums of 2007. It took me a while to "get" Arcade Fire. I feel like I'm past the age where I can unquestioningly buy into that indie hype machine. I think the last album I bought for that reason alone was Ikara Colt's Chat and Business, which I ended up loving anyway.

So what is the age where you have to change your musical tastes? I feel like now that I have a kid, it might not be as appropriate to listen to Social Distortion or even something as tame as Supergrass. The easy listening does drive me a bit nuts sometimes. And then there's Delilah. Ugh. Four hours of horror six nights a week. Thank God for Saturdays.

But anyway, Neon Bible. As with Funeral, the album seems to get stronger as it goes on, which should be every band's goal, because it makes you listen the whole way through. Not that anyone who buys an Arcade Fire album will buy it "for that one song," but if I were making music, you can bet your sweet bippy that I'd want people listening start to finish. Unless you like Top 40 or electronic music and nothing else, I would recommend this album.

9/10

Why Perfection Isn't For Me

Every time our accounting and finance department gives something back to me to "revise" (it happens a lot), I think to myself, "I could never be an accountant." It's not that I don't feel like I'd be competent, or that I'm poor at math, or anything like that. It's that I just don't care enough. It's hard for me to grasp that it matters if "the books" balance exactly. I turned in an expense report from one of our members (I work at a nonprofit), and it was $10 off. I would have just fixed it so the amounts matched up. But instead, I had to do a missing receipt affadavit and redo the expense report for this guy.

There are a whole host of jobs I could never do because of the perfection barrier; human resources would be a nightmare for me with all the regulations. Air traffic controller, probably out.

I think everyone must dream of doing SOMETHING creative with their life. I know I do. Sometimes I feel creative, and sometimes I feel boxed in. I would love for this web thing to become wildly influential and lucrative. The problem is that I'm not really bringing a whole lot to the table here. Nobody has any reason to bring me on a Sunday morning talk show, or feature me on some tech show. It's a blog about nothing. And I guess that sticks with the imperfection theme.