(Preseason) Week 4: New York Giants 16, New England Patriots 13 (2-2) (Thursday, August 28, 2014)

(Preseason) Week 4: New York Giants 16, New England Patriots 13 (2-2) (Thursday, August 28, 2014)

Preseason has wrapped up and real games are on the way! Whoo hoo! :)

The fourth preseason game is usually a snoozefest as the starters only play a couple of series or not at all. It's the scrubbinis who play, guys whose names you don't know and they'll be gone, but the whiff of desperation is in the air as most of these guys will wind up bagging groceries in the near future if they don't latch onto other teams.

And there was an added twist last night: rookie QB Jimmy Garoppolo was the starter and played the entire game. He definitely looked like a rookie at times, but still showed pocket poise and made some good throws, one in particular to Josh Boyce for an exciting TD. He had to prepare all week as the starter, good experience for a guy we hope we don't see in the regular season! :) But not bad for a guy who came from a small school where the football team had no playbook!

Tom did get in on a play: as holder on a kick! He's done it before and was the very best holder evah! ;)

I was amused by Garoppolo's press conference after the game. It was as if he had studied Tom's pressers! ;)

So, the games begin in earnest and the Pats' first one is in Miami against the Dolphins. They always have a tough time down there because of the heat, though the flip side is that the Dolphins come up here in December and freeze their Miami butts off. :) They were the opponents several years ago when a major blizzard dumped snow on the stadium and fans had to dig out their own seats because there just wasn't time for stadium personnel to do it. It was the game when the fans threw snow up in the air in time with Rock 'N' Roll, Part II after Tedy Bruschi scored a TD off an interception. The Pats clinched the division during that game. The Dolphins just wanted to go home. :)

Autumn's Approach

After a few days of very hot weather, thunderstorms cleared things out Wednesday night and it's back to fall weather here. It's so cool on my balcony early in the day that even when it's hot out front, I have to wear long pants and a sweatshirt when I sit outside! :)

School started this week. I'm very glad I went to school when it started the day after Labor Day. Maybe it's good to go for a short week and get the next Monday off, but I think it's a better mindset for kids to have the entire summer off before starting the school grind again. Freedom is fleeting. Soon enough they'll be stuck in the rat race of adulthood. It's nice to have free summers while you can get 'em.

My sister told me to keep September 27th (a Saturday) open on my social calendar. Yay! Looks like I'm going to get a nice birthday surprise when the time comes. :)

I changed the layouts of my journal and comms, which is always a fun little task.

I heard that Hollywood's summer season is down 25% from last year. Can't say I'm surprised. My Movie Night buddies and I have skipped several times in the past six months because there just hasn't been anything even remotely interesting. I've talked to other people and they've cut way back on going to the movies, too. There's just very few 'must-see-right-away' movies for them. They just wait to see them on Netflix on FX or whatever.

It used to be that Hollywood would save their big guns for the actual summer, then they began moving back to June, May, and finally, now it's April. Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier would have been the blockbuster released in July or August. Besides, just about every movie on the cineplex schedule is a sequel or remake. Very few original films. And most of those are low-quality, because Hollywood keeps going to well 'til they drain it dry.

Writing is kind of like a rollercoaster lately. It was going well for awhile and then nothing the last few nights. The only time I have to write is at night and I've been exhausted with absolutely no energy. :(

I'm hopeful that autumn will get my blood going! After all, autumn means the changing of the leaves, pumpkins and apples and Halloween and, oh, yeah, my birthday! ;)