Moh...Moh...Moooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh

There isn't much to say about the Broncos after the 39-23 loss in Oakland but I'll try.  Tim Tebow got the first start of his NFL career and didn't look too bad considering they only let him throw the ball 16 times and most of the game he was running (literally) for his life thanks to the swiss cheese offensive line.  At times he even looked very good (sideline pass to B Lloyd and should-have-been-touchdown to Lance Ball.)  I was really excited about his 40 yard touchdown run in the first quarter until I heard the reason for the QB draw on third and 25...it was supposed to be a RB draw but Tebow got the call wrong.  Oh well, at least he showed some athleticism which our previous QB showed only when sprinting and diving for the one-yard-short-of-a-first-down line.

The real story here was the defense, and I'm using the term defense very loosely.  The play that sums up the season was the dump-off pass to 240 pound fullback Marcel Reece that turned into a 73 yard touchdown that proved to be the game winner.  The play should have been stopped for a gain of around 10 yards had David Burton (shaming the #30 in Denver) been able to make an open field tackle.  After Reese got past Burton, you could see #55 (former captain DJ Williams) jogging after him at half speed.  Maybe DJ had Reese as his FB in fantasy football and needed the points to win his playoff match-up.

The near perfect weekend of football was completed with wins by Carolina, Detroit, Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Dallas.  Denver now is tied with the Bengals for the second worst record and are now only one game behind Carolina.  Please don't ruin this with a win against Houston on Sunday.

So much for not much to say about the Broncos...

After finding themselves down by 21 points with less than 8 minutes to go in the fourth quarter the Philadelphia Eagles and top dog (sorry!) Michael Vick rallied to tie the game with 1:16 to go.  The game was headed to overtime when punter Matt Dodge actually kicked the ball to DeSean Jackson (even though he was told to kick the ball out of bounds) who promptly returned it for the winning touchdown as time expired.  While Dodge should have done any and everything he could to kick the ball out of bounds you have to put some blame on the coaching staff for calling three straight passing plays and not running out the clock to go to OT.

Kids really are amazing aren't they?  I have always rolled my eyes when parents gush about how smart their kids are.  Now that I am a parent I find myself doing the exact same thing.  Baby girl has known quite a bit of baby sign language for awhile now but has recently started having her dolly do sign language.  It is so cute to see her grab the doll's arms and make the doll sign please, all done, thank you, eat, and more.  Of course she talks now (baby girl not the doll) so she doesn't have much use for sign language unless she really wants something.  Just last night she was saying "pees, pees" (please) while jabbing her chest (rubbing chest is the sign for please) because she wanted another sugar cookie before bed.  Unfortunately for her it didn't work and she wasn't allowed to have a third cookie (although it did work to get cookie number two!)

Do you remember when we were kids (OK there might be some "older" folk reading so think back to the 80s) and we wanted to change the channel on the TV we had to actually get up off the couch and change the channels on the TV or, later, cable box?  Things changed drastically with the invention of the remote control.  We were able to surf through channels during commercials by simply pushing a button.  Then, with the invention of VCR, and even better the DVR, we no longer had to watch commercials because we could record a show and skip through commercials in a matter of seconds.  Now watching live TV is like torture because you have to endure the drastic volume changes of each commercial and 400 car commercials at every break.  (Side note: remember when Chuck Woolery would say "we're back in two-and-two" on Love Connection referring to the fact that the commercial break was 2 minutes and 2 seconds?  Now he'd have to say "we're back in five-and five.")  Anyway, going back to my previous paragraph our little girl has quickly picked up on technology and now has no, I repeat NO, tolerance for commercials.  During any of the ten nightly showings of Disney's "Prep and Landing" (very cute show that should be watched by all at http://abc.go.com/shows/prep-and-landing) at the Eckdahl household our little girl will start saying "moh, moh, moh" (more) while holding her fingertips together (the sign for more) about five seconds BEFORE the commercial break.  She knows exactly when each break will occur and will give us the preemptive warning that we'd better get the remote before the commercial starts.  Oh boy, what have we created?

Merry Christmas to you and your families!