“Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking” – Huxley

This may well be the most accurate assessment of my life I have ever come across. It also sums up the divisional playoff game predictions I made last week. Sort of, I guess. I don’t want to delve too deep.

I took the Vikings to cover at San Francisco, 26-21. I almost got the home team score right but that is not part of this exercise. The 49ers won and covered, 27-10.

Baltimore I had winning and covering, 28-17. Of course by now we’ve all had a read of our Sunday papers and know that the Titans indeed came out and put the wood to the 14-2 Ravens, taking a 28-12 victory back home to Tennessee. Almost the complete opposite score. Not good.

I thought the Texans would pull off a back-door cover but lose to the Chiefs, 34-27. I remember when Houston was up big in the secord quarter saying, “if anyone can blow this, it’s the Texans”. Well, howdy doody. Yet another dusting of an under-prepared Bill O’Brien team.

And, finally, I took Seattle to win 24-22 as 4 point underdogs at Green Bay. Alas, the running game was not there and it all fell to Rusty again. Nothing wrong with the effort, they just looked like the second-best team on the field on Sunday, dropping a 28-23 decision.

A brief hockey note before I get to the Friday night curling recap:

This past week a great shame was brought to the Calgary Flames, their fans, and indeed the city itself.

When such a pathetic worm as this is elevated to a place of team leadership and displays the type of cowardice that their player did with his behaviour against the Oilers it affects all those connected to him. If this sniveling puke doesn’t figure it out, and soon, it will have ramifications for his team for years. How will they attract free agents to a team where the setters of example include such a person? How will a class-act player react to being feted by one who seems so unconcerned with such ignominy?

Calgary will become a place where aging has-beens go to cash paycheques for the last few years of their careers because no self-respecting player who wants to win will want to do it there. There’s a damn good reason the linesmen let him take a few extra shots and the teammates leaping to his defence on the ice or in the media are nowhere to be found.

No self-respecting man allows another man to toss him around like a cheap ragdoll without even putting up a fuss. Disgusting.

Now, to Friday’s match at the curling club! We had, as many may know, won the Fall edition of the Friday Night 8:30 PM Novice Curling League. This paints a broad target on one’s back. Not really. It’s quite meaningless. But nonetheless we arrived at the club early, prepared to celebrate our victory while also preparing our livers for the start of the Spring league.

The special, which I’m assuming was created in our honour, was a prime rib dinner for $13. It may not have been the choicest cut of meat but it was covered in gravy and mushrooms and was damn tasty. The fries and garlic bread on the side along with several pints of beer finished off the completely brown meal – a goal of mine every time I sit down to gluttonize.

I mention all this dining drivel mostly because the game itself was rather anti-climactic. After some confusion and last-second changes with the sheets at the start of the night our team ended up moving from sheet 9 to sheet 1. Unfortunately the sheet hadn’t been cleaned or pebbled after the 6:30 game so the rocks curled like hockey sticks. After winning the coin toss I elected to take the yellow rocks rather than last rock in the first end. This was strategic on my part, I decided afterwards, because if each team scores with the hammer we would end up with last rock in the 6th and final end.

The game didn’t get anywhere near close enough for that to matter. We stole a deuce in the first, followed up in the second by a single. Three more coming back in the third end put us up a commanding 6-0 halfway through. We kept right on scoring, notching singles in the next two ends. To their credit the opposition did not concede early. They were a good group, playing as a threesome on the night. I think it was a mother/father/son team. Son had a nice Vancouver Millionaires hat though it was apparently not a lucky one.

Finishing with two more in the 6th and final end it was a blowout rarely seen in the curling club. 10-0 and we headed back up to the bar for more refreshments. After getting properly lubricated I asked a waitress with a very nice backyard for her number and was granted the number. It has now been confirmed as a real set of digits but I’m not sure she was really all that interested. Such is life and if the only wound suffered on the night is to my fragile pride then we came out all right in the end.