Beer and football VI — week nine

The game: Redskins at Patriots
The beer: Smuttynose Rhye India Pale Ale
The result: Win, 27–10
The commentary: I thought for awhile that announcers Kevin Burkhardt and John Lynch (sure, John, it was your decision to leave the Pats in 2008) were deliberately avoiding the name "Redskins." With so many awkward uses of just "Washington," a Burkhardt reference to them as "Washington football" and Lynch audibly cutting himself off at "Redsk" later on, it seemed an evident editorial decision. I have no problem with the effort because it is a despicable name, though I question their motivation since ignoring the problem (if Fox feels it is a problem) seems an odd way to solve it. Shouldn't one overemphasize and call attention to the name in order to force viewers to consider it themselves? Anyway, I eventually noticed several awkward uses of "New England" and "New England football" so I suspect the two are just lousy announcers. Shocker.

Speaking of lousy, how about this prescient jewel among an otherwise silly post from 2006? "I'm not PC thug, but it's about time to retire the name Redskins; the team's baseball hats have a cool R they could adopt as a new logo, and they could become something else that starts with R like the Rapscallions or the Republocrats." It was a poorly conceived exercise by a man nine years my junior but, lo, such mature civility shines through! My "Fuckers" analysis of the Broncos and a hot take on 1987's Predator as "a symbol of American triumph" also showed signs of future life. Em dashes and I have come a long way together—how did the ten-year anniversary pass without another visit from Charles Napier? Not the actor!

To football. Not the blowout everyone expected, which I'll chalk up to the game being a glorified (sloppy) practice session for Tom Brady and company. An onside kick ahead by a touchdown in the first quarter? Tighten it up! Two similar outs in a row to Brandon LaFell late in the game? Stay frosty! Jimmy Garoppolo entering the game without notice in the third quarter? Uh, let's not go nuts. Unfortunately for us it was full contact and Dion Lewis is done for the year. Shit. Vollmer banged up, Edelman getting knocked into apparent concussion protocol, Gronkowski slow to stand after a fourth-quarter reception and tackle… everyone deals with injuries and this is where relatively poor draft success might catch up to some teams. On top of that, my "Rhye IPA" exploded out of the bottle and it took several paper towels to clean up the mess. The smallest violin. Things are tough all over when you're undefeated halfway through the regular season.

The beer drama happened last night during the season three premier of Curb Your Enthusiasm (no spoilers!). I nursed an iced coffee during the game, which made it extra rewarding every time Pierre Garçon dropped a catchable ball/made an athletic first down and I shouted—to an empty house, with the girls out for fun—"Garçon, coffee!" Pretty smarrr-tah.

I watched on a slight delay while transferring files to our new laptop, for it was that kind of game. Overdue since our last (still kicking) is as old as Lynch's "retirement." The interesting phase is yet to happen: early in August I dropped my "shock-proof" external drive and ever since it emits unsettling grind-crunch noises and won't fully backup to the cloud. Some files, at least, are since corrupted—files like pictures and songs, for what else is there? Tonight I will begin downloading from said ether an archived version from Before Gravity and, at close to six hundred gigabytes, I figure on a week. Drag. Once that's complete I'll compare everything (mainly MP3s, I think) to After Gravity, see what newer files are missing and hope I have copies at work, where I download most of my music. Wish me luck. The post-millennial surely laughs at my predicament while listening to Spotify on his or her iPhone, decked out to look like a Sony Walkman because eighties. Revelation will come once their favorite bands delegitimize the current state of streaming as a business model and pull all content, leaving Brayden and Brianna to realize that "transferring files" is meaningless because they own nothing. Alas, kiddos, Steve Albini will always be right.

Up next: The Giants are all over the map again this season. Will our worst fears be realized on Sunday? In February? Cheers!