The autumn is descending and the Neil starts reverting to type. The lesser spotted Neil (that blimin’ spot is still fighting for life on my chin – come on just die and let the beautiful pink skin win already) is a creature of habit. When the nights draw in and the sporting seasons get going then he’s rarely to be seen socially unless you happen to catch him between the apartment and a local takeaway establishment.
Unlike previous years this year the Neil has invested in fiber optic broadband and that has led to even more options for him to watch. With an iPad purchased coupled with an Apple TV box the odds of him not spending the whole of his weekend camped either on his chair by the PC watching sport or lounged across one of the sofas doing exactly the same is shall we say low.
People who have lived with the Neil will know all about this. On Sunday’s (and to a slightly lesser extent Saturday’s) it was known for him not to be seen at all bar forages to the fridge for a cold can of Cherry Coke. A common occurrence used to be doorbell ringing at some point on a Sunday evening and for a bemused housemate to answer it and see a takeaway delivery man or woman standing there. Luckily the housemates knew what this was and a shout upstairs would see the Neil sprint out of his room and bound down the stairs to pay for said food before swishing into the kitchen to pick up a bowl and a spoon before making his way back upstairs to dish out his dinner.
You see the Neil has an issue. That issue is he has no spare time on a Sunday from September through to the Superbowl in February. Yesterday it was noted that he made and ate his dinner during the build up to the Formula 1 as he realised that was the only time he had in the day to make dinner without missing some sporting action unless he wanted to eat dinner at around half past midnight.
We are lucky enough to have been given an insight into how the Neil spent his Sunday…
He was first seen at around 11 o’clock where upon he read his e-mails and read the Sunday papers. He then checked his fantasy baseball team and planned for the big final next week. At just gone midday he remembered the Grand Prix was on and quickly realised about a timing issue that he had. He made dinner just in time for the F1 to start but 25 minutes into the race he switched the F1 to the PC and put the football on the TV. He then remembered the Dundee United v Motherwell math was on BT Sport so put that on his iPad (there is a fellow Neil who follows DU but this Neil has been known to miss occasional sporting events to spend time with his wife – our Neil doesn’t have this option).
By 6PM the football was finished but then the NFL was on – a double header. However the live games did not grab the attention of our subject and whilst he put it on he was playing around on YouTube. Throughout the day the Neil was getting messages from a friend of his who was catching up on a week of Masterchef Australia and passing on her opinions. Come 7PM the latest episode was on TV and the Neil dipped out of sport to watch MCA and because of the terrible NFL games he would also watch The X Factor. At 9PM he returned to the NFL for the rest of the night but used the end of the early games to put his laundry on and then half-time to put his own clean laundry on his clothes horse. At the end of the day he filed some work but decided to record the early morning NFL game.
This is a rare insight to how the Neil lives. Some would say he needs a life and some would say he is living the dream. The one thing we know is that he spent nearly ten minutes trying to work out if he had had a shower that day and after the sniff test realised that he had not.
On the Saturday there was an early EPL game then at three there was Soccer Saturday coupled with a choice of live games via the fiber optic broadband route before the late EPL game. Due to TV regions the Neil was unable to watch the Penn State game live in the evening so spent it watching old Law & Order episodes.
Welcome to the life of Neil – not exactly the life of Riley but interesting all the same…