thoughts on the bears, quick-hit style, three of them:

- the most obvious play on fourth and one is the "sneak and spike," which is to say, sexy rexy takes the snap, dives forward for the first down, kills the clock on first down, and the bears reset. how the club could not have coached him this way (or how he could have forgotten it at this point) angers me to no end. or, rather, frustrates me.

- steve smith is great. the only offensive threat carolina has. i mean, awesome. fantastic. why, then, on second-and-20, was [by my count] fourth string cornerback chris thompson lined up on him on what would eventually be the decisive play of the game? i know azumah was injured. but vasher sure was around, and its inexcusable that he's not lined up on the best player on the field. on a related note, where the hell was chris harris? on another related note, i love peanut tillman, and i've often said "he'll be a pro bowl strong safety in four or five or six years, when he loses a step. he sure can tackle." i think, based on this performance, peanut tillman should probably be a strong safety tomorrow. to get burned on the second play from scrimmage, and to lose that battle near the goal line on the deep throw, and to commit at least one [maybe more] first half contact or interference penalty...ugh. 11 catches, 215 yards. ugh.

- if a team gets a break the size of the gigantic break the bears got on the [correctly called] facemask-plus-fumble thomas jones play and still don't win, they probably don't deserve to win.

and i'm done.

notes on the pittsburgh game, briefly:

- awesome. one of the most entertaining football games i've ever seen, partially because of the david-and-goliath factor, partially because of The Bus, partially because of the wild finish, partially because of the ridiculousness of that terribly botched non-penalty call on the false start/offsides play on pittsburgh's fourth-and-one attempt and partially because of bill cowher's bulging neck veins.

- that polamalu interception was the worst botched call in the history of football. but, of course, polamalu should have stayed on the ground, because only bad stood to happen if he made an ego-boosting interception return.

notes on 24:

- i'm so hooked, it's ridiculous. [you may recall that, this time last year, i watched the entirety of season one over the course of one weekend.] i love the way that charles logan's pigheadedness and stupidity is completely reflective of our current president. i'm expecting a "mission accomplished" speech at some point this season. i also, possibly, hooked a friend tonight.

- - - - - -

rewarding nature of the day:

last sunday, i invited gurs over for the game. or he invited me and i suggested we move to the burbs to watch hdtv. gurs asked if the ladygurs could come. sounded like a plan, and i knew that, if mentioned to the mom-unit, far too much food would be a net result. and good times.

friday, high school bud wej called, asking what i was doing. i told him. "can i come?" he asks. "sure," i say. saturday, he calls and ask if he can bring a friend that i fringe-know. "no problem."

so i mention this to the mother, who knew about gurs and wej, and set the number at five. [one would bow out after some frantic texting on saturday night.]

anyway, gurs arrived at 1145, lady gurs at about 1. wej and friend at about 2. and it was a blast. the boy and the dad were alongside, the beer was cold. my dad had a fantastic early-afternoon reaction to the buger king commercials featuring king-as-steve young ["i love the king!," his reaction no more than 1.2 seconds into the spot]. the boy showed off his grape-mouth-catching skill.

and the mom, well, she made lots and lots of food. gigantic crock pot of chili. dogs, brats, polishes. shrimp. chips and dip. grapes awesomely separated into four-to-ten stem bundles. wow.

a good time had by all, i think. wej-friend left mid-third quarter of the bears. gurs and pal left right after football. and wej got sucked into 24, which was awesome.

- - - - - - -

monday's plans include taking my phone into the local verizon place to see about, you know, getting it to work in the burbs, as well as calling temp agencies and hitting up former chicago "weak" contacts about high-paying, low-commitment, off-hours work. [the goal is to be able to "work the phones" during the day.] there's also an afternoon bulls game. my mom doesn't think there are any nighttime janitorial positions in her district, which is a shame.

tuesday's plans include "working the phones," as eight resumes have gone out in the past week. six are owed calls.

- - - - - - - -

and, now, i'm really tired, so i'm going to bed. friday, i ditched what i'm sure was a fantastic treem party in the interests of creating a newly-tailored resume in the interest of getting it out saturday afternoon. that meant 4 a.m. sleepy and 9 a.m. wakeup. saturday involved drinking a lot with recently-returned fogelmania, which resulted in 4 a.m. bedtime and 9 a.m. wakeup. today, drowsy, but made it through, and had a blast.