Roscoe's Random Thoughts

Of the six NFL preseason games scheduled to be played today, I’m going to try to catch these three:

• ATL vs. DET 3:00 PM CT
• CHI vs. BUF 6:00 PM CT
• SEA vs. SD 9:00 PM CT

Whenever the Detroit Lions, possibly the worst team ever to play in the NFL, wins a game, even in preseason, it is an occasion for celebration. Will they win this afternoon? I don’t know, but I will be listening.

When I was a boy growing up and for the longest time after that, da Bears were my favorite football team. I’ll be cheering for them this afternoon. And the Chargers are in interesting team to follow, too. It’ll be interesting to see how they do tonight.

Of course, if I’m going to catch much of that Detroit game, I’ll have to get back from Walmart first. I’d better get busy now so I can bus out there before it’s too late.

Of course it’s practically impossible to evaluate the strength of an NFL team based on its performance in the preseason. Most teams seldom play their star players during this time, choosing instead to let them rest and avoid injury while playing the rookies and the 2nd and 3rd team players in order to determine which of them will best be able to contribute when the “real” season starts. But that’s not stopping me from forming a few early opinions.

After watching the games last weekend, Thursday night, and last night, I find myself impressed already by the play of two teams and disappointed by two others.

The Titans look surprisingly good: their starting Quarterback especially. Of course his backups leave more than a little to be desired.

And the Saints seem solid and deep, too. But they were playing the hapless Bengals, so maybe I’m thinking better of them than I should.

The two teams that disappointed me are the Cowboys and the Colts: the two teams I most wanted to feel good about. Tony Romo and the Dallas first unit looked solid and played well, but the 2nd and 3rd team guys need a whole lot of work. Any injuries of the first string players will really hurt this team. And the Colts… well, they didn’t even play fifteen of their starters. But the backup guys they had on the field against the Vikings need to get a whole lot better.

… a new member to a CC (Correspondence Chess) club buys into the myth that we’re a “friendly” operation comprised of “friendly” people, and tries to send personal messages either along with or independent of the chess moves. Heh. That’s not how we are and that’s not what we do.

CC players are like silent assassins. The only communication we care about is the moves we make in the battles in which we’re engaged. And our only intent is capturing the enemy King: destroying the enemy on the other side of the board. Anything other than that is a distraction we’d rather do without.

There’s no place for “friendliness” here. Civility, yes. Courtesy, of course. And we all do adhere to the rules of whatever tournament in which we compete. Every experienced CC player with whom I’ve interacted over the years (and I’ve been doing CC for many decades) treats every opponent with respect and politeness. But if you try and get “friendly” in a CC environment you’re likely to find yourself slaughtered before you know what’s going on.

It took the Post Office a full two weeks to get a postcard from Toledo, Ohio, to San Antonio, Texas! And that, boys and girls, is absolutely ridiculous!

No kidding! The date of the postmark on the front of the card was 31 July, and it didn’t arrive in my mail box here in San Antonio until yesterday, 13 August.

For cryin’ out loud, I could ride a horse from there to here in less time than that! WTF is up with the incredibly lame USPS anyway?! Just another broken down federal operation. And now the damned feds want to take over the entire health care system of the country?! Riiight!! Damned idiots!

…and the mailman brought me a treat.

To my delight, yesterday’s “overeating” didn’t bump my body weight up at all. Thanks to another good night’s sleep (I always lose weight best when I’m sleeping well!), I’m still firmly on the 239 lb. WLP plateau that I’ve been on for almost a week now.

Earlier this afternoon the mailman delivered three books to me from my most recent order with Amazon.com. What came was:

1.) Culture of Corruption by Michelle Obama. If you don’t know about this new book of political analysis and commentary, you must be living under a rock!

2.) Dark Wars: The Tale of the Meiji Dracula by Hideyuki Kikuchi. First published in Japan in 2004, this book by one of my favorite authors has only recently been translated into English.

3.) Dead City by Joe McKinney. A tale of zombie horror by a new author to me. This story is set in San Antonio, where I live, and is written by an author whose day job is Detective with the SAPD. Yes, I’m really looking forward to this!

…than I intended to, but at least I was eating the “right” foods and avoiding the “wrong” ones. And my general sense throughout the day was of being healthier and more energetic than has been the case for awhile. So if the scales aren’t kind to me when I wake and weigh myself, that won’t disturb me too much.

Unless outside noises interfere, there’s a sense that today’s sleep will be a good one. And I’m looking forward to a good bowflex workout on Thursday. Both of those, the sleep and the workout, if they’re as good as expected, will contribute to the WLP (Weight Loss Project) in a positive way.

Puritan’s Pride emailed me today, notifying me that the protein powder I’ve ordered from them has shipped from NJ. I’m glad they also gave me the UPS tracking number so I’ll be able to monitor the shipment while it’s in transit. That’s always fun to do. When it arrives my diet will be SO much easier to manage!

The eyes are getting tired, now. Think I’ll head for bed.

Darn it. Tried to bore myself into drowziness by playing shisensho - for nearly an hour. So now I’m totally bored with shisensho, but I’m still not sleepy. Darn it.

Too tired to do anything worthwhile, but still not the least bit sleepy: insomnia really sucks..

I accomplished my main chores and surprised myself by taking care of a few minor ones that weren’t on the day’s task list. Go, me!

So I bought myself a treat: a 2009 NFL.com Field Pass. When the regular season starts on 05 Sept., I’ll now be able to listen to live play-by-play of every game. For only $30. I consider that a very good deal! Now if I could only find something similar for the College games…

On the one hand, I’m no longer concerned about coming down with some kind of bug. I’m actually feeling better, much better than I have for the past several hours.

But on the other hand, in order to get feeling better, I had to do a bit of eating. Darn it! It seems my body isn’t going to let me diet as severely as I’d hoped. Crappity!

…and I hope they cut this sort of headache, sort of body ache thing that’s keeping me awake.

Hey! I know! I can fool around with some of the strange tumblr themes while I try to relax and get myself feeling better. That’s sometimes fun.