The drug football

Having lived in Germany since 1988, I haven't seen too many football games in past years. Americans may not believe this, but American football games are rarely shown on German TV. Oh, the Super Bowl is usually shown, but since it's usually on at 2 in the morning I haven't bothered watching very often. It's not much fun watching a game alone at 2 AM. Anyone who thinks my dear wife would stay up and watch the Super Bowl with me, raise your hand! You back there? Wrong! Go to the back of the class.

Well, a few weeks ago I ordered digital cable and it was activated just in time for the Seattle Seahawks first-round playoff game against the Washington Redskins. I didn't know when I ordered digital cable, but Kabel Deutschland includes NASN, North American Sports Network. And they show all the important games.

My wife is sure I ordered digital cable just so I could watch football games, but I really didn't know it would work out that way. Really, I didn't.

So I recorded the Seahawks-Redskins game, since even for this I didn't want to watch the game alone that late. OK, it started at 10:30 PM, but it could easily have gone till 3 AM, and I don't usually stay up that late.

Sunday morning I turned on the HD recorder and TV, and starting watching the game (audio on headphones - dear wife was still asleep). I was amazed how quickly and thoroughly the game sucked me in. I had to exert utmost control to avoid cursing, yelling and cheering. A few weird noises must have escaped, because dear wife woke up and came into the living room asking if I'd gone crazy. Nope. Just the drug football.

I repeated the exercise the next week for the second-round game, but as you know this one was a downer for Seahawks fans. After half-time I used the fast-forward and skip buttons liberally.

There's always next year!

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As a native-born Seattleite who's been living in Germany since 1988 and in Munich since 2000, I plan on occasionally commenting on German and American culture and politics, from the perspective of one with a foot in each country.

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