Nurse the Hate: NFL Week 17, Pop The Champagne

I have amassed what I would call “an irresponsible amount” of champagne and sparkling wine.  I have one final sparkling wine unit to pass to finally finish my quest for this WSET Diploma.  The word “quest” sounds a bit overdramatic.  I understand that.  However, I find that word to be much preferable to the word “journey”.  The word “journey” is used so often in today’s polite society that it really gets in my craw, and I don’t like to have things in my craw.  I don’t even like to say “craw” much less have something stuck in there.  I'm not even positive where my craw is, so getting what is stuck in it out isn't going to be easy.  

Here's the thing with "journey"...  It used to be that you took a job.  Now people are referring to their series of crappy jobs as their “career journey” with a straight face.  Someone takes a class that lasts for eight weeks.  At the end of the class the instructor might say “When we began this journey…” and no one laughs out loud.  If you were taught rudimentary French while sitting in a conference room, you did not take a journey.  If you loaded a sailboat with Vikings, ale, hard tack, and axes to attack villagers across the sea?  Yes, you made a journey.  The differences are tangible.  Text book and quizzes= No Journey.  Decapitated villagers and plunder= Journey.

I believe my pursuit of a laughably useless wine certification is a quest and not a journey.  The rationale is quite simple.  There are no decapitated villagers or drunk Vikings, therefore I did not make a journey.  At one point, I did go to Bordeaux for ten days, so I did tick a box or two for “journey” as I crossed the ocean and at one point argued with an Air France clerk unsuccessfully.  I will admit that I might have decapitated her had I been given the opportunity.  I was, as they say in Francois, "en colère".  I think it is evident that if I would have attacked a French citizen with an axe at any point there taking WSET crap, it would have swung this over to “journey”.   Yet since there was no axe attack, this is a quest.  No doubt about it.

A quest is a long arduous search for something which I believe ends with a tangible goal.  This WSET Diploma has certainly been a long arduous search and while I think I only get a lapel pin at the end of it, it is still a tangible item.  Granted, the Quest for the Holy Grail might have been more high profile.  The payoff of the Grail is without question more impressive than a lapel pin.  I don’t think anyone would have sent thousands of men to their deaths for Jesus’s lapel pin.  Frankly, I have never seen compelling evidence that Jesus was much of a dresser.  Regardless, both the Knights of the Holy Grail and myself are involved in comparable quests.  Unlike them, I will succeed.

The bottom line is I need to immerse myself in sparkling wine.  This means I will be opening an absurd number of bottles of low dosage, grower and vintage champagne this Sunday while watching football with friends that have almost no interest in the quality or even characteristics of any of the wines.  This is a foolish and expensive endeavor.  Ideally, I should be sitting in a room with good lighting debating mousse levels with someone that can participate in such a frivolous conversation and then ride a tandem bike to the store to buy more.  Life doesn't always work like you want it to work.  Now, I am forced by circumstance to dig in on Sunday and try to win the cost of these wines back with good old fashioned elbow grease.  By “elbow grease”, I mean “gambling on football”.

The last weekend of the year is a wilderness of mirrors.  It is almost impossible to figure out if teams have packed their bags for Barbados or are mentally invested in getting one more win.  I am going to completely avoid games like “Giants v Redskins” where every player is a potential rogue agent.  Why roll the dice on the Texans v Colts game where a third string Texan QB will assumedly hand the ball off all day against an awful Colt run defense? 

I cannot figure out why the Panthers are getting 4.5 points against the Falcons.   They need a win to get the NFC South title and host a playoff game.  They are 7-1 straight up in their last eight.  Frankly, they look like a hard out in the Playoffs.  More than a field goal seems crazy to me.  This seems like a “last possession wins”, so give me the points and the hot team.   I am going to get aggressively on the Panthers and hope the points carry the day.  Carolina +4.5

The Raiders are getting 9.5 points against the Chargers.  As I bravely stated at the beginning of the year, the Raiders were due to regress.  (http://nursethehate.blogspot.com/search?q=2017+win+total) You’re welcome for the two out of three winners by the way.  However, I don’t think anyone was expecting 6-10.  A team slides to 7-9 and team management can explain that away.  Ten losses and the coaches are looking for new jobs.  I will bet that the coaches like living in the San Francisco Bay area making a ton of money.  I know I would.  I would also like to make the move to Vegas with the team making a ton of money next year.  This is a big game for the Raiders.  I think they play hard.  Let’s also note that the Chargers don’t crush anyone (except the Cowboys).  I could see a Raider straight up win, but I’m just taking the points.  Raiders +9.5      

Season Record (including win totals):  23-19-1