I'll Have Nothing (and Like It)

This weekend for the first time in what seems like forever I did pretty much nothing and I must say that it was everything I dreamed it would be and more. It was awesome to have an entire weekend where the most pressing engagements I had were 1) going to see a movie on Friday night and 2) dragging myself a mile away to watch the Illini game at The Fieldhouse Saturday night. Apart from those distractions (and a couple trips to the gym) I spent a lot of quality time on the couch watching and gambling on football. Ultimately, gambling-wise I had a pretty good weekend (+$130) but really the point for me isn't to win money it's just to avoid losing my bankroll and thus having to put more in (one of my favorite gambling quotes is "I hope to break even this week; I really need the money." That only makes sense to you if you're a gambler). As a fan, the weekend was a mixed bag. The Illini game was quite disappointing. Ultimately it was probably a meaningless loss though since they will almost certainly still be bowl-eligible. Also, they didn't really have a legit shot at the Big Ten title anyway since their chances of beating Ohio St in Columbus were pretty remote. As a side note, as it turned out The Fieldhouse was just not a good place to be Saturday night as the crowd was packed with fans of the Illini, the Indians, and the Terrapins; all of whom lost. However, the Bears game Sunday more than made up for the Saturday letdown, as Brian Griese temporarily saved the Bears season by engineering a 97-yard TD drive with just under 2 minutes to go and no timeouts. It became even more impressive when it came out later that he had lost the audio in his helmet and thus was forced to call all the plays himself. After last week's crushing last-second defeat, it was nice to get one of those back.

So while things evened out for me, I've got to say that I really feel for Indians fans. 3 chances to win one game to get to the World Series and they come up short. Since the Cubs got swept out of the playoffs 2 weeks ago I had been comtemplating whether I would rather have had them go out the way they did this year or in 2003. I thought at the time that I'd rather have this year's result and now after watching the Indians I'm sure of it. It sucks to just get swept out of the playoffs; but it's something entirely different and far more cruel to get "this close" and then have your heart torn out. And by the way, why do I get this feeling that the Red Sox are going to win like 4 more World Series titles in the next 10 years and become the new Yankees? All that good will of being the team that always comes oh-so-close but never wins it is going to evaporate in a hurry, let me tell you. Actually, between the Series-bound Red Sox, the undefeated Patriots, and #2 Boston College most of the Boston goodwill is probably already gone.

Speaking of gone, the movie I mentioned that we saw on Friday night was Gone Baby Gone, which is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck and is based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (who also wrote Mystic River). Christy and I both agree that it's the best movie we've each seen this year. Since it's a thriller, I can't really talk about it without giving away too much, but what makes it so good is that when the inevitable twists come they actually make a lot of sense within the context of the story and are consistent with the characters and don't simply happen because the writer decided there needed to be a twist here. Casey Affleck also does a much better job than I thought he would. It's not an Oscar-worthy performance, but anytime you can share the screen with Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman and hold your own, you've done an admirable job.