NFL draft day: A rite of spring for the Slouch

I look forward to two days all year: The arrival of the swallows at San Juan Capistrano and the arrival of the instant millionaires at the NFL Draft.

Draft day is better, because there’s no traffic and fewer people between my couch, the clicker and the kitchen. Of course, there are the announcers, but they’re like toll booths – necessary evils on the highway of life.

Anyway, I watched it, now all of us can relive it:

9:01 a.m. PDT Saturday: He’s still Chris Berman and I’m not. Remarkably, he’s way ahead.

9:08: The 49ers shopped their No. 1 pick so much, Joan Rivers showed an interest.

9:11: As expected, Jets fans belatedly boo the selection of the new pope.

9:12: Speaking of which, I can only imagine how ESPN might’ve covered the selection process for the pontiff.

10:02: I’m not about to make the same mistake I made during the MLS draft – not enough nachos.

10:16: Sophocles. Da Vinci. Winston Churchill. Timmy Chang. You heard me.

10:24: For the first time, three running backs are picked among the top five, echoing the 1988 culinary-school draft in which three of the first five selections were pastry chefs.

10:48: The Cardinals are “on the clock.” I believe it is a sundial.

11:11: On second thought, maybe Aaron Rodgers shouldn’t have eaten lunch with Akili Smith last week.

11:18: The Lions make their pick in under three minutes; I assume Matt Millen was double-parked.

11:32: If you were to string end-to-end everything Mel Kiper Jr. has ever said in his NFL draft lifetime, well, you’d need a very long string.

11:50: To combat draft-day fatigue, I institute a two-Rolling-Rock-minimum per round.

12:03 p.m.: The Rams’ Torry Holt joins Berman, Kiper and Chris Mortensen on the ESPN set for the entire day, prompting NFLPA chief Gene Upshaw to file a grievance on Holt’s behalf.

12:28: In the Redskins’ war room, Daniel Snyder insists everyone addresses him “General.”

12:44: Audio tapes of Paul Tagliabue’s small talk with No. 1 picks holding up their jerseys is available at NFL.com.

12:45: I like Tagliabue as much as the next guy, but if he were an after-dinner speaker, people would stop going to dinner.

1:13: Salmon swim upstream, spawn and die. But the day after the draft, Kiper just goes to work on next year’s show.

1:29: They say that Timmy Chang, No. 1 on my board for three years, lacks arm strength. But he threw for 17,072 yards at Hawaii – what did he do, outsource his passes?

1:43: Every player is on a cell phone. Geez, when I was coming out of college, my parents wouldn’t even accept my collect calls.

1:57: Jeff Fisher surprised Titans brass by bringing a date to the draft room.

2:05: If I wanted to see Ron Jaworski this much, I’d just get the bobblehead doll.

2:22: Once the fruit plate ran out in the green room, Aaron Rodgers finally got perturbed.

2:31: England’s Henry III, as some of you may recall, oversaw a reign of extravagance and general incapacity. This doesn’t bode well for Mel Kiper III.

2:53: Over on “The E! True Hollywood Story,” it’s the biography of Demi Moore. Why do I channel-hop?

3:01: The second-longest first round in NFL history ends. Alas, my TiVo is smart, but it won’t fast-forward commercials and Kiper on live TV.

4:38: With their first selection, the Jets pick Ohio State kicker Mike Nugent in the second round. Jets fans look like someone just told them the keg is empty.

7:44: The entire league snubs Timmy Chang in the opening three rounds. That’s like passing over Beyonce for homecoming queen.

7:47: ESPN keeps running a crawl, “For more extensive draft coverage, log on to ESPN.com.” More extensive? What do they do there, provide DNA analysis?

Ask The Slouch

Q. A few days ago I visited a casino and played two-deck pitch (a variation of blackjack) for four hours. The next morning I woke up with a shooting pain in my card-holding arm. Am I the first person to experience Gambler’s Elbow, or is this something common to card-holding gamblers everywhere? (Karl Henrichs; Merrill, Wis.)

A. In my gambling experience – which is limited to sports betting, poker, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, keno, office pools, bingo, gin rummy and the occasional trip to my local dog or race track – I have never heard of this.

Q. Should Mitch Albom’s book be re-titled, “The Five People Who Told Me They’d Meet You In Heaven”? (Dave Scocca; Carrboro, N.C.)

A. Pay the man, Shirley.

Q. Did you trade up in the draft for your second wife? (David H. Aron; Washington, D.C.)

A. Actually, she traded down.