Another Bad Medical Metaphor

A false positive is a result that is erroneously positive when the situation is normal. Although it probably means you had a lot of fun along the way, you still don’t want to receive a false positive for AIDS, gonorrhea, chlamydia, or your football team.

I had a lot of fun rooting for the Giants today, but perhaps I shouldn’t get my hopes up. In fact, I might have been better off rooting for Eli Manning to fail miserably, so that the Giants have reason to give up on him for good.

Though the Giants pulled it out, this was partly the result of a bad Manning pass that Plaxico Burress made a good reaction on. This isn’t unusual: a lot of Manning’s completions are barely that—balls that are a little too high, a little behind, thrown with a little too much touch. If they get hauled in or dragged down, it’s usually because of a good play by the receiver. A false positive for Manning. And he still threw two ugly interceptions. That’s the normal situation.

Gheorghe Medical Update: SAD

From Gheorghe correspondent and medical consultant Jimmy Giovanelli in central New Jersey:

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SAD, or seasonal affective disorder, refers to a clinical depression caused by lack of sunlight. It usually occurs in fall and early winter. I am suffering from SAD right now, but I think there is another, often overlooked cause: the early collapse of one's favorite football team. I know you're not supposed to self-diagnose, but I'm fairly certain that my seasonal depression is caused by the premature disintegration of the New York Giants. The cure will still be sunlight; instead of watching the games I'll go outside and rake leaves and play with my kids and ride my bike, and soon this season will be a flickering memory, a fleeting thought that I might be forgetting something . . . something I used to do on Sundays . . . and then it will disappear entirely. Sort of like my church attendance.
Some people might say I'm not a true fan, and they're probably right. They'll say: premature disintegration, that's premature speculation! To them I say, perhaps you need Levitra. Some people might say this sounds like a preemptive strike before all the facts are in, and to them I'll say: if it's good enough for our President, then it's good enough for me. Some people might say: you New York fans expect too much from your teams, stop being so selfish. To them I say: have you seen my tax bill? I pay three times more than those folks in Wisconsin and Texas. I deserve more.

I don't get March Madness any longer, or Mets Fever; I don't suffer the Knicks or follow the Devils. I occasionally look at a Yankee box score in the newspaper, but since I don't receive a newspaper, this happens once a month. The only sport I watch is football, and the only team I follow is the Giants. So I need the Giants to perform. And it's not like I follow that closely. I just want to turn on the TV, root for some guys that I know, and watch a couple of play-off games. But when the players you know all seem to be retired, injured, recovering from an injury, or throwing surprisingly well despite an injury, it might be time to give it a rest. I can always catch the bandwagon across the Raritan and root for the Scarlet Knights.