Those that are still coming for V-Day applications (you have a couple more days ladies….don’t be shy….it’s the entry below the entry below this one, Jan 24th….if those directions confused you, you don’t need to fill one out….) feel free to skip the following rant….

So anyway, to my other 4 faithful readers….I was kind of delusional after the Raiders got blown out in the Super Bowl….and now I find myself recalling the last time I felt this badly after a Super Bowl….Super Bowl XXVI, Jan. 1992….

In the weeks leading up to the game, I convinced my mom to let me host a party at my house….this was major for a guy like myself….

Having girls there was out of the question for me at the time (hey, I was 12 and kind of immature!!!)….and I recall how angry I was that my cousin Radiance came with her brother, Bryan….the other invited guests were the former homie Nile, Rashard (my boy in the military) and his brother, Eulus and Travis (the dudes that like clubbing with old folks), Smallwood (the guy who lives in San Antonio now), Gilbert (who I haven’t heard from since high school), and this guy Robert….Robert at that point hadn’t quite become a bully/Calvin-tormenter but the seeds were being planted….his invitation was supposed to be a tactic to avoid that fate (it didn’t work…but that’s a whole different entry)

People started to arrive maybe three hours before kickoff….and we went outside and played a game of tackle football in my front yard (we’ve always had a big yard, no matter where I lived)….the highlights of the football game were Smallwood’s glasses getting stomped on over on the sidelines….and Rashard getting flipped high in the air on a clip by Nile…my neighbor across the street came out of her house with one of her friends and the football game dissolved into some psuedogame being spit by a few of the guys….

Once we got inside the game was about to start….the room quickly divided up into the Buffalo fans (me and ummm….me) and the Washington fans (everyone else)….well as any most football fans know, Buffalo didn’t win that game, as a matter of fact they got blown out….at one point as I was cheering one of the few big plays, the other guys (led on by Nile fittingly) proceeded to throw balled up napkins at me….

Halfway through the second quarter we decided to just chalk it up and play some John Madden Football (the very first version for the SNES….it SUCKS nowadays, but it was REVOLUTIONARY when it came out)….then things started to go crazy….

I got into an argument with one of the other guys….and then I ended up in my room watching In Living Color….yet, somehow, the Super Bowl party was rated a success….

Well Sunday felt like that….I wasn’t alone in pulling for a team this time….but the outcome was the same….I got delusional midway through the third and thought the Raiders could have pulled the game out….right until Derrick Brooks slammed the door shut with his interception for a touchdown….