The game: Dolphins at Patriots
The beer: Long Trail Imperial Porter
The result: Win, 38–7
The commentary: Ho-hum. Another destruction, another twenty-two ounces. At least some nice Brian Hoyer and eight-percent-alcohol action kept things interesting.

I don’t have much to say this week. It was nice to see Julian Edelman cash in on some of that great punt-return potential. And a new coffee shop/market opened up by the hometown train station. I had the day off yesterday so took a stroll down to check it out. It’s true that I practically walk by it every day on the way to and from the train, but it’s on the other side of the street and I’ve almost been run down a few times already just trying to chuck a Netflix into the mailbox. I figured having the day off with nothing planned would mean I could carefully take my time and look both ways and such. The shop is pretty neat but they don’t serve anything iced “until spring… summer” so I left with a hot Colombian something-or-other, a rarity for me (even iced coffee is only once a week or so, due to a swelling iced chai addiction that has come around to the more genuine-tasting options at the Equal Exchange and Sip cafés in Boston). The owner wasn’t particularly friendly—odd way to go about staying in business—but I browsed a minute and was really pleased to discover an excellent, if small, craft beer selection. Plenty of new bombers for me to try, and how about that but it’s the playoffs this weekend.

I didn’t get up to much else. I watched Cloverfield and yelled at the TV a lot, hoping that if I’m ever in a similar situation a top priority will be to find something for my companion to wear beside a cocktail dress and high heels. I suppose a suspension of disbelief is necessary… even the guys in Predator were slaughtered after remaining calm and relying on their survival and combat training. Except for Billy—challenging the predator with a machete and a Sagat-esque chest gash didn’t make a lick of sense during the five or six remaining seconds of his life. (Wikipedia says actor Sonny Landham was “unstable” during filming so maybe it was the character’s inevitable direction.) Still, he is the one who sniffed the thing out in the first place. Score one for insanity.

I also watched the ESPN documentary Muhammad and Larry. It’s a well done and impossibly sad study of the decline of a champion who might just be our greatest living American. Number two: Richard Kline!

Up next: The Pats get a week off to rest and study film on potential round-two opponents. The Steelers have earned the other AFC bye but their top concern will be to keep Roethlisberger from raping anyone. Cheers!