Okay, so I caught Christine Chen during the break, which reminded me of this. Ah, Christine!

A word about riots: real cities have them every once in a while. When the Bulls in Chicago were winning the championships left and riot, my home town had a riot once a year. If the ‘Gulls win tonight, Seattle may very well have a riot. If we do, can we please, please, please not be pussies about it? Arrest some folks, sure. But no soul-searching, okay? Seattle’s a big city and all big cities have riots now and then.

Okay, the game is back on…. ouch.

UPDATE: Ah, it’s kind of hard to write now. My kid has decided he doesn’t want to watch the game, he wants to wrestle.

Oh, touchdown! Good for us, bad for them. The crowd goes wild. And… we get the extra-credit kick-point thing. It’s 27-7 now. Apparently the bad luck—mentioned in my first post, below—that I bring to playoff games only kicks in if it’s a team I give a shit about. But… I’m presuming now, too, that the ‘Gulls are going to win this thing. When I turned on that doomed Cubs game three years ago, I watched beause it looked like they had it sewn up. Eighth inning, ahead by several runs, four outs from the World Series. “We’re safe now,” I thought, “safe enough for me to watch.” Then it call came apart. So… I’m just saying… things are looking good for our suddenly beloved ‘Gulls, but it could all come crashing down.

“I bet the Seagulls are going to make it to the Superbowl,” DJ just said. We shall see.

UPDATE II: What was that tweaking nipples dance about? Number 99 tackled somebody and then walked away tweaking his nipples. Odd.

Instant Message from a Seattle Native: “Holy fucking shit.” See? Now everyone is convinced the ‘Gulls are going to win. This means, of course, that they’re going to lose.

Oh, and to my brother Bill in Chicago: These guys beat the Bears? The Panthers? Really?

UPDATE III: A bad omen? My son’s one-eyed, deaf chocolate toy poodle just threw up. Then he left the living room—is the tension getting even to Seattle’s poodle community?

It’s fourth down for Seattle—I’m starting to get it. That’s bad, right? When it’s fourth down you have to bring in that kicker guy, if you’re close enough. Oh, time out. Time for some car commercials. Hey, Ford: maybe a little more on R&D and a little less on commercials? Wow… Zetia works in the digestive tract—their commercial just showed food bring turned into poop in the GI tract. “Ask your doctor if Zetia is right for you.” I think Zetia, from what I could gather, leaves the bad cholestoral in your digestive tract, instead of letting it be absorbed into the body. So… it’s just going to pass out of you, right? Like Olestra, that fake fat that gave people loose stools and butts that leaked santorum mixed with potato chip crums all the time? Sign me up for some of that.

Hey, the other guys have the ball again. Now one of our guys slammed into one of their guys and their guy dropped the ball. Okay, fourth down for them—and even I know they’re too far away for a field goal.

UPDATE IV: Miller Light. Coors. Budweiser. What, no commericals for Lillet, l’aperitif de Bordeaux? Am I the only man in America drinking a chilled glass of Lillet during the game?

The dog is licking the spot on the floor where he threw up—even though it was already cleaned up by the boyfriend. With 409. Dogs are icky.

UPDATE V: The game goes on and on. Wait! We caught another ball that was not intended for us to catch! This is a wonderful development! Go ‘Gulls!

UPDATE VI: I don’t understand the clock. Sometimes it’s ticking away when they’re just standing around, sometimes it’s not. When is the clock running and when isn’t it? 14, 13, 12… now we’re in the fourth quarter. My kid has lost interest in the game. He’s putting on his Heelies—shoes with wheels in the heels—and moving the carpets so he can scoot around the house. The dog is nowhere to be seen.

UPDATE VII: You know what it means if the Gulls win? The straight guys at work tomorrow are going to be unbearable—particularly the ones who were born and raised here. I never heard them mention the Gulls before last month, now they act like devoted, life-long fans. Frauds!

While you were watching the game…

NBC cancelled the West Wing…

Passengers on the Queen Mary 2 are power-pissed about something…

Oh, and he Israelis are preparing to bomb the shit out of Iran…

UPDATE VIII: Gomez, a reader who knows something about this game, writes…

One thing about the Cubs collapse (which I did in fact see on TV as well): baseball is time insensitive. There is no clock: progression of the game is based on the occurence of outs. So all Florida had to do to win that game was get hit after hit after hit. There was no clock to run out on them.

Meanwhile, Carolina is down three touchdowns or so, only has 11 minutes left, and unlike in baseball, where you remain on offense until the other team puts you out, in football you have to kick the ball away after every score. So Carolina would either have to kick short onside kicks and hope they can get it back… twice, after scoring… twice, then score a third time. All in under 11 minutes.

In other words, the Seahawks have this in the bag unless angels come down from the heavens and take over the bodies of the Carolina Panthers.

Then we should all brace ourselves for a riot in Pioneer Square then, I guess. But no pussing out about it, Seattle.

UPDATE IX: Touchdown! Okay, so we’re going to win—despite my best efforst to jinx the game. Congrats, Seagulls. You can break our hearts in Detroit.

UPDATE X: Okay, gotta go have dinner—people coming over, people who don’t care about the Gulls. Over and—wait! Touchdown for the Panthers! The talking heads all but said the game was over—so did Gomez. Can a team score 20 points in five minutes? I dunno, I’ve never watched a football game before. But I was about to turn off the TV, and now I’m going to sit here and watch the rest of the game. Hell, I may throw up now.

Steve Largent, former Seagull, is on the field—he’s a bigot. Voted “yes” on banning adoptions by gays and lesbians while he was in the U.S. Congress. On behalf of my adopted son, I’d like to say fuck you, Steve.

UPDATE XI: Our dinner guests have arrived. They’re straight—and while they do care about the Gulls, they weren’t watching the game, so I got to break the news to them. It turns out that his father had season tickets for ever, and stopped buying them two years ago because they never won. Now his dad is feeling pretty bad…

Oh, insult to injury: We got the ball in a stumble or something. Less than two minutes left and there’s no way the Panthers can even score another face-saving, lose-by-less touchdown. They’re toast.

Wait: They don’t even play the last forty seconds of the game? They just stroll out there and hug?

UPDATE XII: A Slog reader says…

come out of the closet and admit that you’re a really bit of a football fan. the first step is revealing that you actually know the team’s name.

Not a football fan, but what the hell: Congrats, Seahawks.