Okay...almost defeated. Or, Madden 2009 Redux.

So I haven't been bothering anyone to read my blog for a while because I've had three big blocks to actually writing in it for the last three or four weeks:

One, a total dearth of football news. Lawrence Taylor did kidnap a girl in what I can only assume was an attempt to begin a slave auctioning service (like the one in Taken, where they sold teenage girls to rich men who should have been riding balloons around the world), but that was like a month ago and nothing really ended up happening and anyway, LT doesn't even play in the NFL anymore.

Two, totally broke. I really want to go to Hooters and interview the waitresses, but all my money seems to go to “rent” and “groceries” and then I went and took what I had left over and donated it to public radio or something equally supercilious, so as eager as I am to receive chicken wings from a girl in bright orange hot pants, that plan is still on the back burner until further notice. I just don't have the expendable income to ruck fules right now. I'm also getting nervous about carrying this plan out in the summer time, as the closest Hooters to my house is on Hollywood Boulevard and tourist season is officially upon us.

Finally, no time. I've been crazy super busy and when you actually have real things to do it is difficult to write entertaining essays about nothing happening in a field in which you have no knowledge.

But as little as I care about football, I do care about forcing myself to write on a regular basis, so I've taken the small boon of time that's been given to me as a Memorial Day gift to play some more Madden 2009 on the Xbox in an attempt to gain a more organic understanding of the game. How has it worked? I have no idea.

I gave up on any kind of tutorial nonsense this time around and just dove right into game play. One team against another—I initially chose to play as the Dolphins, since in theory, they're my team, but the version of Madden that I'm playing is from 2009, and as it turns out, the Dolphins were terrible in the 2009 season (which may have been last year, or may have been the year before that—like fiscal years and Oscar years, football years do not go from January to January and I'm still a bit iffy on how that works). So in addition to my own utter lack of skill, I'm playing with a weak team. I lost steadily. No surprise, but frustrating. I finally switched to the Patriots, who are rated as the most skilled team in the game, and chose to play against the Falcons, rated the worst. I managed to win this game, but it was a near thing.

I could marvel about how realistic the graphics and scenarios are in Madden, or I could complain about how you can only control one of your eleven players at a time and it's like, impossible to do anything at all when you're defending, so it's hardly an authentic football experience (then again, if I were on a football team for reals, I'd only be controlling myself, so that still just one player—god, we're spoiled in 21st century America), but this is not a video game review, it's a sports tutorial, so I will instead list some things I learned about the game itself that I feel are valuable.

1. Short passes are almost always the best way to go. Long passes often get dropped or intercepted and should only be used in times of desperation. On the other hand, if you try to run the ball, there are eight to twenty huge dudes in your way and you won't get anywhere. Also, fans hate running games because they like to see the ball fly through the air. And people.
2. Punt on the fourth down. This is one of those awesome things that every football fan knows whether they understand it or not, so if you can toss punting into a conversation, everyone will think you know what you're talking about. (Punting is a socially acceptable way to throw a tantrum about giving the ball to the other team by kicking it as far back away from their goal post as possible.)
3. Commentators are useless. I was hoping that listening to the commentary might teach me something, but all the pre-recorded virtual commentary did was rub it in when I did something stupid. And it usually wasn't even my fault. Seriously, how is a person supposed to learn in such a non-supportive environment? Turn those assholes off.
4. Finally, if you're defending the goal as opposed to running offensive plays, just don't touch your Xbox controller. You only have control of one guy and he's nowhere near the ball, and if you try to see if you can get anything done he'll just run across the line and you'll get a penalty. So when you're defending, make a sandwich or something—but make sure you give the controller to your husband first so he can pause the game when you get the ball back. Otherwise, you might accidentally run out of time and you get in big trouble for that. Avoid.

That's about all I've got right now. Hopefully one of the players will do something entertainingly criminal soon, or I'll get my act together for the pre-season. In the meantime, I highly recommend going back and reading my team rundowns from back in February. That's when I was on my A game.

(Also, if you're in LA, ask me on Facebook about the play I'm in right now so I can prove to you that I'm not a failure at all aspects of life.)