A snow day is like a trip to a mythical land where time truly stands still. It's incredible when you think about it. I mean, you got to bed with classes to attend, or presentations to make but then you wake up and a day has been inserted between last night and this morning!!!! You know, the "this morning" that was supposed to be filled with stuff to do? GONE! Replace with a consequence free version of this morning that will stand alone in the universe forever. F is for f#@!$ng and A is for Awesome.
Forget getting dressed or polishing up on the weak part of your powerpoint show, you've got a couple of Clint Eastwood marathons to watch homie!!! No Clint, no problem! It's a snow day. One of the few all skates you will ever have in your working class, adult life, so knock yourself out, literally, if you so choose. Today could be the day you break your all time pop tart consumption record. Maybe you finally get around to renaming your porn clips so your woman doesn't find them. My favorite, from my best pal in high school "hockey's greatest fights". The theory being, the more unappealing the title, the less likely you are to get caught. I don't suggest renaming porn clips for everybody out there. You've gotta be good at it. I once had another buddy who changed "Tracy I love you" to "Love Actually". Breakup, actually. As Woody Allen and Larry David attempted to say 2 years ago, "Whatever Works".
So I'm in the mood to play a little Madden Football but I'm trying to figure out what the acceptable cutoff is for playing a video game out of season. I mean growing up the unspoken rule was always the Pro-Bowl but that has definately changed for two reasons. One, the Pro Bowl is now before the Super Bowl which means you'd have to quit Madden BEFORE the Super Bowl. File that one under NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Ask any true gamer about the seminal football games he's played in his life and a good majority of them will have occured right after Super Sunday. It's just too inspiring of a time, video game wise. The Super Bowl is to playing Madden what Christmas is to playing Nat King Cole. Or that Billy Squire Song. Just Not that "we drank a toast to innocence" train wreck.
The second reason you can't quit is that even if the Pro Bowl were after the Super Bowl, the video games themselves have improved so profoundly that to just quit cold turkey is outta the question until they come up with the Madden equivalent of Methodone. It was different back when the men were all square and the ball didn't travel in the air (I had INTELLIVISION). Now they're so lifelike you can design their tattoos, upload your face to the game, basically do everything but figure out which state they'll get their DWI's in and make their United Way commercials in. But wait til 2011!!
That being said we need a cutoff because there's no dirtier feeling than playing your 34th season on franchise while you can hear your neighbor's kids on their slip and slide. It's the gamers walk of shame.
There are three basic Madden philosophies. The Super Bowl stoppers, which we've addressed, heretefore to be mentioned as the Old Testament. Then there are the year rounders. The guys who NEVER stop. So many seasons that I'm not even sure they're playing football anymore. Everyone knows that dude who's team has just become the only franchise in history to have a father, son, and grandson, quarterback the team to a Super Bowl Championship. Never mind that the team plays in UTAH!!!! Someone once told me those guys needed help. No those guys need a vagina. Then there's the phase in phase outers. Alot of people go with the phase out phase in. The old temporary stop. Like they're taking a congressional recess from Madden.
This is probably the answer long term because it allows you to keep going but at the same time forces you to stop and be a part of the outside world for a few weeks. We've all lived in a Madden bubble at times. It's scary how removed from the outside world you can become. Really important life moments are occurring and all you can think about it is that tight end screen you've perfected in the single back twin wide reciever formation. If you were capable of stopping and thinking about it in the moment, you'd realize how scary it really is.
This would all be so much simpler if there was a baseball game that really could hang with Madden but there isn't. Face it. Don't bring up MLB The Show because after playing Madden for 8 months playing MLB is like living in New York City. No matter how good people say it is they're mostly spiritually and emotionally bankrupt from the experience. I know, I lived there. You keep telling yourself how great it is as a way of tuning out all of the indignities you suffer to be there.
I can't begin to tell you how many times I've told myself the city is great while handing over three dimes each month to hear my neighbor's farts when I'm in MY bathroom. Or how many times I told myself the city was great while having my face squished between an armpit and a transvestites thigh on the subway. MLB is the same way. You tell people it's great all the time! Then you hit a 2 out bases loaded single and none of the runners move off their bases and you get forced out at second by a centerfielder throwing from the warning track faster than you can say "I WAS PUSHING THE X BUTTON THE WHOLE GODDAM TIME!!".
Devoid of a clear cut answer and with no true sports gaming alternative in sight, I look inward for the answer and come to a personal moment that I will share.
The night I met my wife I was completely convinced of two things and two things alone. One, I had to marry her. And two, Kurt Warner was a better fit than Eli Manning for my NY Giants playstation team. In no particular order. I can remember meeting her at a show and looking right into her eyes and going to myself, "dude, I know this girl or something" and then I remember her telling me this story about going to the state championships in volleyball back in her high school days and I had an epiphany where I realized Warner had a more accurate arm and we'd be able to offset his mobility issues if we just ran a few more short routes. It was at that point that I knew I had to stop. And then start again. Phase in. Phase out.
The truth is, Madden is incredible these days and there's no reason to stop doing anything incredible especially when you read the fisrt 3 pages of ANY newspaper so I think I've answered my own question. I'm a phase in, phase outer. Happy snow day mother f#@!ers!!!
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