Beer and football V — training camp/the all-important third preseason game

The beer: Samuel Adams Summer Ale/Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
The commentary: G. and I relived last year's agenda and visited Foxborough the first Saturday of training camp, bringing along my father this time. It was more of the same: minimal football viewing, excessive scampering, one diaper change and a lot of fun. She even wore the same dress—sign us up for next year! We went to the Olive Garden for lunch afterward. I don't know why. The garlic bread was greasy but the Sam Summer did a good job washing it down. Traffic wasn't bad going home and she fell asleep on the 93 onramp. 2013 all over again—see you at the AFC Championship.

I remember nothing of the all-important third preseason game. I drank a ubiquitous Sierra Nevada because Deadspin recently called it "one of the finest pale ales in all the land." And lo! It's as safe and insulting a pick as Harpoon sending its IPA and UFO to this Summer's New England Brewfest (which I'm happy to say I attended as part of my fortieth birthday celebration). Because you can't get Harpoon IPA or UFO anywhere? I'll take a Dale's over their entire output.

Old age is a bastard so I found myself sitting on a park bench at lunch on Friday, skimming headlines before returning to work. For hopefully the last time in my life, as I become more aware of swearing out loud now that my daughter is old enough, I proclaimed "Holy shit!" upon reading that Logan Mankins had been traded. More shocking than Richard Seymour a few years ago but probably not as big a hit—I love the guy, but he's a guard. An "early second-rounder" guard. Ask me again after Olivier Vernon decapitates Brady on Sunday. (Jesus Christ, look at her!)

My baby is three years old. I fibbed to Boston Harbor Cruises and said she was two to save fifteen dollars because what kind of monster charges that much for a child? It was a magical holiday weekend of beaches (a personal sacrifice), a carousel, Tangled and the Burlington Mall. I also finished season two of The Wire. G. agrees that you don't want to mess with Omar.

Here we go with the knockout pool again, lifting twenty bucks from my wallet instead of ten. I'm leaning heavily toward the Texans over the Redskins because I would still take last year's Bengals over last year's Bears. All day. Give me that game opening weekend right now and I'll pick it again, fax that twenty over to the guy running things, get busted for counterfeiting and use my one phone call to make sure he still had me on the Bengals. My thought process last year was that the Bengals probably wouldn't amount to much (whoops) but the Bears really wouldn't amount to much, and you don't want to blow your week-one load on a team heavily favored to go far into the postseason—or, conversely, against a team expected to go nowhere. Half the people in the league picked the Bucs over the Jets because they bought the hype that the Jets would lose and keep losing, forgetting that the lowly Bucs were on the other sideline. At the end of the season (only then, says my man Fred Kirsch, can one fairly judge each team) the Jets won eight and the Bucs won four. In September I figured the Bengals could win nine (they won eleven) and the Bears could win seven (eight), and even if my long view was proven right I was wrong that day. A one-game difference based on an educated guess should have forced me to look elsewhere… but goddammit, I remain convinced the Bengals would have taken four of five contests last season!

This year, the Texans are set to be the rebound team of the year (right?) and might even earn a wild card in a weak division. They won two last year and I think they're good for eight or nine this year. The Redskins? "The Washington Football Squad"? Can they improve from three to… six? Five? Herein lies the genius of my imperfect plan: start with a sleeper instead of the Seahawks, Broncos or Pats so you have those teams to chose from later on. Herein lies the flaw: a sleeper is a sleeper.

Project Runway is back! And so is: Amanda? Whose idea was it to let viewers choose from her, Alexander and Krazy Ken? Just make Nina Garcia design something if you're looking for a gimmick. I sort of hate this cast. Char was cool but didn't shoot out of the gate the way I thought she would and I was sorry to see her go last week. Korina is a genuine no-talent asshole, even if she was right about Amanda being a fraud (though it was odd that we never actually heard her say it to Amanda's face on camera the way it was portrayed—such is the life of the reality show editor). Kini is pretty talented, works super fast at creating the same silhouette every week and, at thirty (!), is a walking advertisement for the perils of sun exposure. He should have won last week. Samantha has made as much of an impression with me as those Patriots fan-oriented mailbags that Mike Reiss posts and I ignore every week. Alexander goes to the same hair salon as the bully kid from King of the Hill. Angela flamed out like no other after demonstrating (during the casting special) that she "works quickly," which on Lifetimethenetworkforwomen translates to "single lapel" or "FRANTIC" depending on the usage. I'm rooting for Sandhya since everyone has it out for her for using colors that aren't black or gray.

I thirst! Last Spring, in anticipation of its forthcoming television adaptation, I read all four thousand pages of Stephen King's Under the Dome. It moved quickly and was a lot of fun, even if the ending was a little clumsy and rushed. (King's payoffs usually are—it's all about the journey with him, particularly in The Dark Tower when the final confrontation consisted of maybe two hundred words.) I liked it. The small-screen version? The small-screen version! Season one made some odd editorial choices like applying familiar names to different characters. Sure, don't use the crystal meth subplot so soon after Breaking Bad, but was Phil Bushey the only available name for a local disc jockey/sheriff/quick-healing gunshot victim? I continued to watch because it was supposed to be a single-season mini-series and I was curious about the reportedly rewritten ending. But then CBS picked it up for another season because they realized, I suppose, that there wasn't much actual dome talk for a show about a dome. (Also, it's a literal dome here, unlike in the book. Way to make people forget about The Simpsons Movie.) I swore off season two but, hey, King himself wrote the teleplay for the first episode. Give it another chance (equally bad). But then: The Onion. The satirical non-satirical AV Club's weekly reviews are enough to keep me watching. Here are the episode grades so far: B-, C-, C+, D, D, D, B-, C-, B, D-. Middle three again: D, D, D. One reader comment supports every viewer's excuse to keep watching: "It occurred to me today how I spend all of Monday looking forward to watching a show I despise." I'm better off re-reading the excerpt from the never-published/never-finished The Cannibals. I'll settle for The Green Mile. Someday, Trout Mask Replica. Someday.

Up next: The only thing worse than having to play in Miami the first week of September is having to play there eight times a year as a member of the Dolphins. Cheers!