Just watched the end of Georgetown's 1984 Final Four win over Kentucky. Much like recently when Brian said he worried about Travis Ford's hamstring injury of 15 years ago, I found myself quickly invested in the game.
In my case I was wishing Master or Blackmon or Harden would hit a 3-pointer and get a comeback started. Then I realized there were no 3-pointers for three more years.
Billy Packer was intolerable, I thought. But I watched him broadcast games for another 25 years, so I guess I could tolerate him. Barely.

If I was a whatever kind of scientist/psychologist/something technical that studies brains, I believe this type of thing would be interesting to study. Why do sports fans get anxious watching a rerun of a game when they already know the outcome? Why do the suspenseful aspects of some movies or books still work even if I've seen them before and know how they end?
And yet some movies are incredibly suspenseful the first time but don't work for repeated viewings. The Exorcist is still scary to me, though I know what's going to happen. However, I find a second viewing of The Sixth Sense to be very pedestrian. It worked great the first time, but not the second.
What's the difference? Somebody needs to get a federal grant, spend a few hundred thousand dollars hooking electrodes up to college students, and make them watch old playoff games and thriller movies, and then explain it to me. Maybe they can tell me why I get anxious about whether the Allies can halt the German advance during the Battle of the Bulge.

At least now that VCRs are out-dated I no longer have to worry about the weather warnings. Now that I don't watch those old tapes I no longer fall for the two-year old tornado warnings or blizzards.