don't distract me from my distraction with things that matter

Sunday night. I'm enjoying the Bears defeat of the Eagles. Or I'm dreading what looks like another second half collapse. Or both. Still, I'm watching football. Then something strange happens. Al Michaels mentions the current financial crisis on Wall St. and makes several references to the bailout.

Tuesday morning. Today. I'm trying to enjoy the SportsCenter highlights of last night's Ravens/Steelers game that I didn't watch in favor of Heroes and actually spending some time with Andi. The SportsCenter crew make what feels like a dozen more bailout references.

This has to stop. I watch sports - and I don't think I'm alone in this - to not think about what's going on in the real world. I watch sports so that, for a few wonderful moments, there's nothing more important than my team's defense coming up huge on 4th and goal or nothing more important than the offensive failures that kept that defense on the field. If my team isn't playing, there's nothing more important than the other games shaking out in a way that favors my team in the standings. If the game has no affect on my team's possible playoff future, then there's nothing more important than the stats of a receiver who's on my fantasy team. In short, sports are a distraction that allow me to get way too heavily invested in something that I can remind myself is actually pretty trivial should it go poorly.

I do not want your references to the real world in my sports. Not during the game. Not when you're broadcasting the highlights. There are at least 5 channels I could have turned to if I wanted to hear what people thought of a bailout plan and its affect on the financial future of this country. When I watch the game, I just want to think about the game.

Everything else will still be there when the clock hits 0:00.

Because I've already sullied a post about watching football with political nonsense, I may as well toss you a link to a video where Barney Frank becomes my hero for pointing out the absurdity of Republicans politicizing the failure of the bailout plan by talking about how Nancy Pelosi tried to politicize the bailout plan(via Catie Braly by way of Facebook, for full disclosure). Enjoy this more than I was able to enjoy SportsCenter this morning.