ectoblog.com

Editor’s note: Because this universe’s New Orleans Saints have fallen apart quicker than 2 dollar tennis shoes and crushed the hopes and dreams of millions of fans who felt that maybe, MAYBE this was the year that the Saints would actually put to rest the “flash in the pan” talk that so ineluctably rises the year after the team does anything good, we’ve asked the ectostan in Alternate Universe #35 to speak today about how it feels to live in a world in which Sean, Drew, Deuce, Reggie, et al have been playing up to the hype and crushing their opponents so thoroughly that there has been talk around the league of instituting a 60 point “mercy rule” that would come into play at the beginning of the 4th quarter.

Ectostan: “How does it feel to inhabit such a magical world?”

Ectostan 35: “It feels great!”

The New Orleans Saints: 2 and 0 with no real competition on the horizon. We now return you to your normal, painfully predictable existence.

42-17! In Dallas! It dudn’t get any better en dat.

WHAT. A. GAME.

I can imagine how unnerving the wars are for people who watch television. They unnerve me from my little be-newsprinted cocoon here on the coast. If I had to contend with tv news as well, I believe I’d have to start work on a bomb shelter.

I’ve seen television 3 or 4 times in the past month, since Iraq became second banana in War coverage. Each time, a talking head of one sort or another tried to frighten the piss out of me. Somber tones, explosions, dire warnings, then commercials.

How is it possible that people who actually use the tv—most everybody—can function with all that going on? I simply couldn’t function. It would always be a Sunday evening in November for me, that dead feeling when the mind tries to recalculate the odds of the Saints making the playoffs after yet another Sunday afternoon fiasco. That hopeless feeling. That bitter pretend.

I use the sports metaphor because that’s exactly what it is, a metaphor for war. Or a substitute. Even better. Yes. We pound on the Dallas Cowboys vicariously instead of pounding on the real heads of real people. But you know that. Maybe if the Arabs and Israelis had really kick-ass soccer teams, they wouldn’t need to beat each other stupid. Maybe.

There IS always hope, you know. Good things can happen. But you’d be hard-pressed to find good news, or even the portent or possibility of good news, on television. That’s flawed, and a disservice to us.

There is always hope, and the world keeps rolling along, and most of us keep rolling along with it.

in other news: some sort of event happened in Detroit, page 11.

SI.com - NFL - Saints will return to Superdome on Sept. 24 - Sunday February 5, 2006 8:42PM

Vince Young is headed to the NFL.

Between Vince Young and Matt Leinart, Aaron Brooks will be getting his walking papers. Maybe Haslett and he can open up a muffaletta stand in Slidell next year.

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

It’s Wednesday, which means that I’ve had 3 days to get over the fact that the Saints lost to a very bad team spectacularly. One of these decades, the Saints will return to the playoffs.