The Fantasy Football Tree Giveth...

and the fantasy football tree taketh away.




I am on the cusp of greatness no longer. Two of my four potential champion teams have been hammered this past week. My beloved and sweet Crackheeds were vanquished by Gabe's Pescaderos on Monday night, ironically finished off in one of the worst ways imaginable - by an Eagle. And no ordinary Eagle, but Donovan McNabb, the ringleader himself, whom, even worse, *I* had traded to Gabe only a few weeks earlier for the currently gimpy Brandon Jacobs.

Fantasy Football is indeed a harsh mistress.

My Landstuhl team, the 11-2 powerhouse that it was (the number one seed and 150 points better than the next team, and the one team I was SURE would win), lost to a lowly 5th seed by 10 points. Why? Because Brian Westbrook didn't show up this week - that's why.

Duped by the Eagles twice in the same week. And with a Giant's loss to the Cowboys? I thought this was supposed to be the holidays. If it is indeed, let the heavy drinking begin.

I still have two potential champs in my remaining leagues. We shall see how things go down. But my dreams of being emperor of all of fantasy football have faded....until 2009.

Other tidbits, intended mainly to keep this blog rolling along, at least at a snail's pace:

-I saw a man in clinic this morning came dressed as Santa Claus. The full suit, 300 dollar leather boots, and a 200 dollar leather belt. (He told me the costs). He is a jolly man, for doing the spiel during the holidays. Only I couldn't revel in the joy with him. We focused more on his blood pressure and cholesterol problems.

"Santa's eating a lot of refined carbohydrates to keep warm up there in the North Pole, eh?"

But he did ask me if I had been a good boy this year. It was a weird encounter.

-I had a sleep study last night. For years I've dealt with potential symptoms of narcolepsy, including quick onset of sleep, sleep paralysis, hallucinations upon waking and falling asleep, daytime somnolence, sleep walking, and other things. Talking about these symptoms over the years with Gwen, she encouraged me to get a sleep study, and last night I did. (These are the perks of dating a neurologist.)

It was strange. Imagine pasting (yes, pasting) about 12 electrodes all around your head as well as others on your legs and neck, taping them down, and wearing two bands around your chest and abdomen to measure movement, and placing other wire sensors across your upper lip to monitor air flow and temperature. Now lean back, with weird lights in the room and a fish eye infrared camera on the ceiling that makes noise a creepy mechanical noise as it pans - and go to sleep! It's only a step away from Clockwork Orange - just relax! Luckily I did fall asleep, because I'm good at that. But when I turned on to my side (one of my frequent moves), it took drowsy effort to not become tangled. Also scratching an itch on my face became an act suddenly fraught with peril. And once I had to "detach" to go the bathroom in the middle of the test. That was a total debacle.

Anyway, the study isn't read yet, and there are probably more tests to come, but we'll see what I can find out.



-On a whim I picked up Metallica's new album, "Death Magnetic" a few weeks back. I've been very pleasantly surprised. That thing absolutely rocks. It's MUCH better than "Chinese Democracy", the new Guns and Roses offering, which I also picked up a few weeks back. That one...is not so good.





GOOD





BAD

Any questions?