C.J.: Vikes QB Christian Ponder: 'Football is my girlfriend'

Vikings QB Christian Ponder has an opening for a girlfriend.

Applications are not being accepted.

"Football is my girlfriend," Ponder told me last week, when he, ahem, refused to go along with my speculation that the Vikings would put a beating on the Colts. "I'm not saying that," Ponder said with a big smile, as you can see on my startribune.com/video. How prescient Ponder was about the 23-20 loss.

Ponder was in the company of Vikings PR assistant Tom West, a master at keeping that QB ego in check, when I was at Winter Park. West averred that I was making an earlier-than-usual appearance at Vikings HQ, being there ahead of the Week 2 Game as opposed to last year "when you waited until Week 7 or 8 to come."

Remembering a December Star Tribune story about Ponder that quoted his girlfriend but did not name her, I asked the QB to call me first when he gets engaged.

"I'll call you. Before I call my Mom, I'll call you," said Ponder.

No, no, I told the laughing QB, call Mom and then call me.

Not this year?

"Probably not."

Hmmm, sounded to me as if he'd made a trade. I asked if he still had the same talent on the scene. Ponder said, "I've got nothing going on. Not here anymore," he said of last year's talent.

Reminded of Vikings beat writer Dan Wiederer's Dec. 30 story that quoted "Ponder's girlfriend," the QB said:

"I'm a lone wolf right now. Football is my girlfriend. Painful girlfriend."

"One can break my leg," said Ponder. "I guest technically both can break my leg."

Whoa. Ponder should avoid any woman who might want to break his leg.

The Vikings left Indy with broken hearts, not legs, although Adrian Peterson's leg didn't seem fully recovered. We saw flashes of brilliance from Colts rookie QB Andrew Luck, who's got nothing in the cute department on Ponder.

The conversation drifted over to Ponder's new haircut. He said he's doing it himself because "I was tired of paying for haircuts."

When I predicted, wrongly, that Ponder would beat the Colts, West said quizzically, "In the haircut department?"

"I'd say it's probably a push," said West.

"Looks-wise?" said Ponder. "You're awful."

Don't believe West, Ponder -- you're adorable looks-wise, even if we don't win another game this year.

E-conscious Prince

Prince was rocking an AFRO on ABC's "The View" Monday.

But all I could hear was that 'fro screaming.

I cannot recall seeing Symbolina's hair in a 'fro since those team pictures of him playing basketball -- was it junior high school? It's not a hairstyle I would have expected the man with the ever-changing tresses to revisit as an adult. Notable that it's cut higher on the top than the sides. I assume that's to give the illusion of height.

Wearing a 'fro now inches him closer to that portrait I painted of him wearing dreadlocks.

Prince's ecological consciousness is changing right along with his hair.

"View" watchers learned that there are now solar panels atop Paisley Park, inspired by Prince's friendship with Jones. Solar panels are expensive, so this should be a clue that he's not planning to raze the Chanhassen building.