Another Thanksgiving weekend under my belt -- literally. There's something about this four-day period that puts me to sleep. Maybe it's the tryptophan, or maybe it's the lengthening shadows and long nights. But it's definitely a time to catch up on rest after a hectic couple of months. This year October and November have been even more action-packed than usual.

What lulls me to slumber more than anything else, though, is televised sports. I can't go more than 15 minutes in a prone position in front of a football or basketball game without crashing. I catch a few minutes of the game just as I conk out and come to, but that's about it.

Tonight I couldn't resist catching the end of the Sunday Night Football contest, and when I turned it on, I was delighted to see that it was snowing sideways where the game was being played, in Denver. It was an exciting finish, with the visiting Oakland Raiders coming from behind to beat the home team, the Broncos, in the fourth quarter. Players slipping and sliding in the snow, with the ball taking weird bounces and flying in odd trajectories. At the very end, a field goal was blocked because, given the conditions, the kick was way lower than normal.

But there was one aspect of the game that bothered me. If you've watched any football lately, you know that, thanks to the wonders of technology, we now see the first down marker on every play as a yellow stripe electronically superimposed across the field. It's done so well -- unlike an old-fashioned chroma-key insert -- that it looks exactly as though it was painted on the field along with the other stripes marking the yardage to the end zone.

In the snow, however, the yellow stripe reminded me of an old Frank Zappa tune so appropriate to the season. And it dawned on me: They definitely need a different color of stripe for the snow games.