The game: Packers at Patriots
The beer: Shipyard Prelude Special Ale
The result: Win, 31–27; Fabio, 5–4–0
The commentary: I went to bed at 1:30 for the dorkiest reason possible: the Survivor finale. It was sort of a complicated television night, the plan was to watch Survivor live (pretty much) while recording the game. (I couldn’t record both because we had free premium channels for three months—synching up nicely with twelve weeks of Dexter, and not by accident—and the DVR was too close to full thanks to a handful of the-blank-blanker movies (The Hurt Locker, The Kite Runner, The Sext Bronzer). So along with the stress that comes with Survivor (surprisingly high) I had to prepare myself for the DVR FULL—PLEASE DELETE PROGRAMS TO CONTINUE RECORDING message. I’m glad it never happened because I still don’t know what I would have done.

I ended up drinking the Prelude during the show. I don’t know if I’ve just had too much beer lately (gallons and gallons in the past two weeks) but I didn’t think too much of it. I wish I knew more about beer to be able to express certain flavors that don’t do it for me, all I know is it was similar to the Thanksgiving beer that was also just alright… maybe it’s a wheat thing. I’m excited for next week’s stout though, also from Shipyard—I picked it up during our trip north after having dinner at Federal Jack’s, a sort of brewpub that serves some delicious haddock tacos but is otherwise exceptionally unromantic. (Later that night, however, we were the only people in the theater to see the 9:30 showing of the new Harry Potter movie. We didn’t make out like teenagers learning about their bodies but it was fun to be able to talk out loud to each other as if we were watching at home.) I had a couple of Blue Fin Stouts with dinner and bought one of those and the Prelude to help finish out the regular season. (A stop at the market in Ogunquit center produced last week’s Rogue and one more that I’m very excited about saving for the closing Dolphins game.)

So Survivor first: I couldn’t be happier with the result. Fabio might be a knucklehead (particularly for letting the “Fabio” nickname stick and not punching whomever gave it to him) but he seems like a good guy and he closed out as well as anyone in the history of the show. I’m also certain he was stoned out of his mind during the reunion special. Chase is a buffoon… how he calls recurring paranoia a “strategy” is beyond me. And I knew Sash wouldn’t get a single vote but it was nice of him to dress like an English banker for the night. Watching him overcome the urge to emotionally wound everyone on the jury was almost as fun as Dan’s “do I have to wear these cowboy boots now or can I give them to my manservant for Christmas?” expression.

And what a great job by my man Jeff Probst, as always. (Remember when notable fucktard Bryant Gumbel used to host these reunions?) Switching to “On second thought, fuck you and forget I asked” mode after Shannon didn’t take him up on his offer to redeem himself for the “Are you gay?” exchange was amazing. Survivor would be a good show without Jeff but I’m not sure it would have the top-priority spot in our series settings the way it does now. I can even overlook his minutiae-driven narration during challenges—he is perfect for this show. (I’m disappointed that “drop your buffs” hasn’t entered common lexicon. Same thing with “dance for your life” from So You Think You Can Dance. “The client just called to tell us they’re slashing their advertising budget. So drop your buffs, everyone—we have to redo the entire campaign. And you there… Johnson? You’d better dance for your life if you want to keep the account.”)

Hey, there was a football game too! Let me tell you about football: the average game lasts one hour on the game clock, airs for three hours when factoring in timeouts and other breaks and contains about twenty minutes of actual football. I know because the skip-ahead on our remote is set to thirty seconds, so I was skipping immediately from play to play (except when the Pats went no-huddle in the fourth). This is no way to watch a game unless you just want to go to bed—before I knew it there were only five minutes left in the game and the Pats were barely hanging onto a four-point lead. Instant quickening of the pulse, to the point where I started taking deep breaths and forcing myself to settle down. If this team loses the Super Bowl because Mike Carey’s crew is too chickenshit to call an in-the-grasp sack then I will surely die.

What is it with sparkling-new quarterbacks and massive white running backs against this defense? They turn into Joe Montana and Jim Brown—bring on another shot at Joeflacco and Ray Rice. (I hope I don’t regret that come January.) The defense reverted to a week-seven sieve-like state and still won, just like they’ve been doing all along. The Packers should have been up by so much more at the half but they weren’t, just like opposing teams have been doing all along. I’m a little worried but not too much, since you can correct things like foolish penalties and (via benching) Brandon Meriweather’s extended exercises in mental retardation. It does help when underrated guard Dan Connolly makes the best special-teams play since week four (thanks Dan, if not for you I might have gotten no sleep at all). At this point it’s comforting to know they’ll probably be able to tighten things up and rest key players while enjoying an extra week of preparation for their round-two opponent. And also to know that it often snows in January.

Up next: The pesky Buffalo Bills host the Pats in a welcome early-afternoon contest. A win here means the good guys clinch home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. A Jets loss to the lowly Bears means the same thing but I want my boys to earn that fucker. Cheers!