Oh, since it's the new hot thing, here's how my football season will play out:

9/4 - I go to MN for the state fair. Since the Vikes play their last preseason game on Friday, I manage to avoid football on Sunday. Since I am not participating in Craig's football league, I return home to find his blog has begun its four-month stretch of unreadability.

9/11 - Someone says something inappropriate before or during a game about 9/11. Someone else says something even stupider about how there should be no games played today.

9/18 - Perhaps the last third-Sunday gaming date I can make before I have to juggle curling dates.

9/25 - Corpse Bride opens. Prepare to complain about Danny Elfman some more.

10/2 - Serenity (new Joss Whedon) and MirrorMask (based on Neil Gaiman stuff) open on the same weekend. National Guard is called in to quell theatre fights between fannish cults. Since both groups have significant overlap, many fans end up punching themselves in the face repeatedly.

10/9 - Chicago Film Festival is underway this weekend and next. Focus on Miike films, documentaries, and shorts.

10/16 - I feign interest for a week to tweak Bears fans, as the Vikings come to town. Curling season starts up. As it will still be warm out, the annoying football talk will play second fiddle to the even more annoying golf talk for another month.

10/23 - I kick the last of the visiting FOGHATters out of my home. Go watch football at the airport, you freeloaders!

10/30 - With trick-or-treating moved to weekend afternoons, this faux halloween yields few costumed kids, and the trick-or-treaters that are out there are greeted by drunks angry to be interrupted on "this huge drive." Oh yeah, Detroit burns down.

11/6 V for Vendetta opens this week. kickass!

11/13 - First big snowfall of the year. We settle in with a heretofore-unseen HBO series; either Deadwood or Six Feet Under.

11/21 - I prepare to return to work after being asked to take a few days off. Apparently the new words I learn from Deadwood do not go over well in a corporate environment.

11/27 - Thanksgiving/early Xmas in MN. Dean, Jane, and Todd disappear for three hours, come back pissed off.

12/4 - I see part of either a Falcons or Titans game from an airport in either Atlanta, Nashville, or Chattanooga.

12/11 - The golf talk finally stops at the curling club. Unfortunately, it's replaced with Illini talk.

12/18 - Maybe the lines for King Kong have thinned out enough to see it on Sunday.

12/25 - Christmas in the Boston area. Father-in-law complains about the Giants' woes and Patriots' success. Much smiling and nodding ensues.

1/1 - A minor scandal erupts as New Year's parties across Chicagoland wrap up at promptly 12:01, so people can stop vomiting in time for the noon Vikes/Bears game. Vomiting starts up again shortly after kickoff.
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1/15 - Vikings stage their annual playoff collapse. I get periodic updates via the TVs in the University of Michigan's Modern Languages building.