As many of you already know, it’s the simple things in life that tickle the sportschump’s fancy. One such glory includes sitting at a neighborhood pub, watching a relatively meaningless football game, sipping whiskey and texting friends while the locals stare at me, wondering if I have Tourette’s as I laugh out loud.

As I sat and watched Monday night’s Fiesta Bowl between undefeated Boise State and TCU, Croshere, one of my most uniquely disturbed yet highly knowledgeable friends sent me a text indicating he was in an ornery mood. A sports snob such as myself, he jumps at any opportunity to ridicule someone for their stupidity.

Croshere began our evening-long text-versation with a crack on the Fox broadcasters. His first message read simply… “Insightful keys to the game: stop the run. I say stop the pass too but I’ve seen a lot of these things.”

At that point, I knew it was on. The endless quest to make a friend, who lives miles away and whom you can’t see or hear, lose his cookies.

As I sat there on my third cocktail with the game about to start, I overheard someone across the bar tell another poor soul (who got roped into that conversation unwillingly) that he used to tour with Air Supply. That was all the fodder Croshere and I needed to make for a successful evening of texting.

This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2010.