The game: Eagles at Patriots
The beer: Founders Breakfast Stout
The result: Loss, 35–28
The commentary: This is where the heaviness sets in. Perhaps my “Before Floyd”/“After Floyd” theory was too broad. Is it, in fact, a Founders Curse? First the All-Day IPA and now the Breakfast Stout: can it be so simple? Or should I recognize the possibility that what I drink after a game is over (recorded and saved for primetime) has no effect on its already determined outcome? I don’t know, maybe it’s bad coaching again. My man Fred Kirsch from PFW in Progress likened the odd on-side/mortar kick-off to Ernst Stavro Blofeld explaining to James Bond how he will eventually be killed by this laser beam or that school of piranha. You’ve got the Eagles where you want them—down two touchdowns early—and most of them have checked out mentally. Why provide an opportunity for some to run out of patience for losing? “Fuck this asshole for practicing trick plays on us. Shit, we can still make the playoffs, right? Let’s go! Then all back to the Electric Factory tomorrow night!” These against-all-odds comebacks only come around so often and you can’t be expected to win every time. The Pats let one slip against the Broncos but they would have gotten away with something had they won on Sunday—might have felt almost unclean. Strange way to manage a dominant team, despite the injuries. The world’s smallest violin…

It’s the second week of December and that brings Big Doings. The (fake) Christmas tree was erected… and took up the full floor-to-ceiling height in the living room of our new house. I guess we’ll be shopping for a new, shorter, priced-to-move (and equally fake) tree on December 26. Work also had its Second Annual Corporate Subdivisional Acronym Holiday Gathering in Boston’s Ladder District (née Combat Zone) on Thursday. This time I got in two free beers and some decent room-temperature appetizers before the Corporate Subdivisional Acronym Tab was closed out. It remains stunning when an open bar becomes a cash bar without notice. Talk of ditching for the Beantown Pub (not only a better spot but also closer to the train station) gave me new life as, inexplicably, some co-op student majoring in Disposable Hipness hooked in her iPhone to undoubtedly stream The Very Best of Millennial Bullshit Non-Music Designed to Turn You Into What You Once Rebelled Against, With the “In My Day” This and the “Blue Cheer” That and dribbled the life out of me one programmed Swedish bleat at a time. Follow me! I spent maybe half an hour there, drinking Coke and never removing my jacket so as not to be tempted to wonder if “Maybe the 11:45 isn’t so bad after all.” I almost pissed myself during the hurried walk to catch the 9:20 but it was worth it.

And this week? And this week! It’s all back to the InterContinental VaGina for another Full-Firm Alphabet Soup Takeover Featuring Shrimp and Architecturally Brilliant Dessert Offerings. (Full-Firm Takeover now playing in back-alley theaters across the country.) I remain exceptionally proud of that CUNT CONT photo. Also to come is my sixth (short) holiday playlist, consisting of MP3 files that I own. Oh, twenty-somethings.

Up next: The football gods conspire to break JJ Watt’s hand before the Texans host the Patriots. The queue to rail against injustice forms in the comments section of Pro Football Talk. Cheers!