The Baker’s Dozen

1. I must have given God a handjob in a previous life. I say this because no member of the jobless community should ever be able to go to so many awesome sporting events in a three-week span. First, I was treated to lower level seats for the Bears-Colts Week 1 Sunday nighter at the opening of Lucas Oil Field (beautiful stadium, though they might want to find a new national anthem singer. Dude missed the whole first verse. I shit you not. He missed the first verse! I mean I can see him possibly skipping over “O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.” But not, “Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light.”)

So I watched my Bears slightly remove the Super Bowl XLI loss taste out of my mouth for at least three hours, ticking off every Colts fan on the way out as I nailed EVERY verse of the Chicago Bears fight song. Then the following Wednesday, I drove up to Chicago for the USA-Trinidad and Tobago World Cup qualifier sitting in Sam’s Army seven beers deep, enjoying a 3-0 win. Now, I’m heading back to Chicago for bleacher seats for the Cubs-Brewers series (my first trip to Wrigley this year) for free thanks to my sis and her fiance. Um, welcome to the family big guy. Then I head back down south to the alma mater for the IU-Ball State football game. Don’t laugh, the teams are a combined 5-0 and it’s a 7 p.m. kickoff. You know what that means. I’ll have plenty of time before kickoff to ensure I forget the whole thing.

I wonder what would have happened if my previous self had gotten a little looser with the big guy upstairs…

2. Aaron Rodgers is the truth.

3. If anyone was watching the Bears-Panthers game on Sunday as I was (had to go to Buffalo Wild Wings because the damn Colts game was all we got, though it still took up all four of the large screens behind the bar) then you saw Carolina quarterback Jake Delhomme dance and pound his chest in celebration after…sliding three yards short of a first down. Delhomme took a good pop from Bears linebacker Lance Briggs and complained about the hit to the refs. Former Bear, current Panther Muhsin Muhammad wants Briggs to be fined. Briggs had this in response, “If I hit him late, I would have been flagged for it. The play was clean. If he hadn’t taken extra steps, he wouldn’t have got hit…They pay me to be mean on Sunday. It’s football. You can’t spend the rest of the game crying about hits. Not taking anything from Jake Delhomme; he’s a great quarterback. But this is football. You’re going to get hit.” Sounds fair.

4. Justin Fargas’s groin injury is all my fault. God hates gamblers.

5. Speaking of groins, taking pictures of one’s privates is perfectly normal. I mean I did it…when I was 13! But hey, grown men Jeff Reed, Chris Cooley and Santonio “Don’t Get Me Confused with John Holmes a.k.a. Johnny Wadd” Holmes (right) just couldn’t help themselves.

6. Dane Cook should die. Can’t wait to see his new shitfest. I mean come on, “Good Luck Chuck,” (which got a whopping 3 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and “Employee of the Month” (which got a way too high 21 percent; this might have been one of the worst concepts for a movie ever) were such big hits.

7. “Mad Men” is the best show on TV.

8. The season finale of “Weeds” was pretty damn good. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who have yet to clean out the DVR, but it was better than expected.

9. Watching all this news about the banking and investment crisis makes me happy I don’t have any money.

10. I’m not one to brag (cough, bullshit), but I couldn’t help but let y’all know I put up a Sweaty ABC’s Fantasy Football League record point total this weekend with 175.44 points. We’ve been doing the league since 2003, so it’s kind of a big deal. I’d like to personally thank Kurt Warner (361 yards, 3 TDs), Calvin Johnson (129 yards, 2 TDs), Brandon Marshall (166 yards, 1 TD), Brian Westbrook (103 total yards, 3 TDs), Earnest Graham (116 yards, 1 TD) and Ryan Longwell (5 FGs) for carrying the squad, while Chris Cooley (72 yards) and Felix Jones (return TD) provided a little extra salt in the wound. Did I mention I had Jay Cutler (350 yards, 4 TDs) on the bench and lost Marques Colston and Nate Burleson to injury last week? After a rare off year last year, Touchdown My Pants is ready to regain the title.

11. How tough do you think Norv Turner would have gotten with Ed Hochuli if the two were in an alley?

12. It’s a good thing Al Davis gave this guy a $50.5 million contract for those 13 career sacks in four seasons. But hey, at least now I know his name.

13. Hickey owes me a handjob for the ticket to Thursday’s possible NL Central clincher.