Superbowl....well, it was a Sunday anyway

Ramblings Post #84
Once year, man and boy find the culmination of the greatest sport a spectacle unto itself. It is glory on the gridiron, and fury on the soul as the athletes clash and realize that this is the championship and reasons for standing on the sidelines and holding one's self in abeyance mean little. As the old saying goes, "Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever."

I didn't watch most of the Superbowl. I'll be honest, my team wasn't in it and I was tired of hearing Saints fans scream "Who dat?" and so it wasn't at the top of my list of great things that had to be done. But I'd studied Friday night (before I fell asleep with the book open) and Saturday - reading for two classes done - and only because I'd left my outlines on the printer at work did I actually have a reason to stop. So, armed with my donation liquor I was ready to go see some people whom I didn't work with or go to class with - which constitutes the current sum total of who I see seven days out of seven.

The first party was across town and my directions were make the left into the subdivision, down about a half mile then a quick right and another say quarter mile and there is the house. Simple, right? So I turn into the subdivision and I see cars parked already. But its a big subdivision and so you figure more than one Superbowl party. Well, there was more than one...but those cars I passed coming in? Yeah, the party I'm going to. They had filled the subdivision with all the cars, to the point where I see women headed back to their cars because its just too crowded.

I stopped doing really crowded crowds a while back.

So I turn back, because I'm not going to either of the two other parties I know of...one I didn't RSVP to and the other I don't want to see the host. I stopped to grab some chicken and my RP calls, the one who had set me onto the first party. Only now it's another party downtown. Cool. But as I leave, the phone rings again and its Shade.

And let's just Death can really ruin an afternoon.

Shade drove down from DC to be there for her girl Scoop and I'm guessing will help her ride out the worst of her own personal storm. Earlier that week, Scoop's husband, a marathoner of a young 37 was struck down by a heart attack, so there was much mystification and surprise. Although there was much prayer, God had other plans. By the time we got on the phone, the worst of it behind them, it was mid-way though the 2nd quarter and Shade just needed a friendly ear. By the time she'd gone through all her emotions, it was nearing the end of the 3rd quarter. Let's just say I wasn't really in the mood for football after that.

I did however, see the Manning intercepti0n that sealed it. And just like the entire rest of the season, the Saints got lucky again. I did like the Onion's head line..."Superbowl win moves New Orleans up to No. 3 power ranking."

So ended up doing my third favorite Superbowl pastime this morning at work: Watching Superbowl commercials. Two commercials, okay three commercials caught my eye...

The non-commercial with Dave, Oprah and Jay. That was unexpected considering how much trash Dave had talked about Jay the last month.

The remake of the "Nothing but net" commercial with Lebron and Dwight Howard. The first commercial was great and basically invented the catch phrase, the second one by making it a dunk contest... should have have stayed on the Ad agency storyboards. The original with Jordan and Bird, you believed they could make the first couple of shots (and they actually did) but from the looks of it, you needed digital artistry to make these two new already ridiculously athletic guys pull off some of the dunks they proposed. The kicker when Bird showed back up and stole their lunch was funny...until neither of the younger athletes was supposed to have recognized him...which was stupid.

And Betty White's snicker commercial was inspired. Betty has always been feisty outside of her Golden Girl persona, and she was hilarious with the retort "that's not what your girlfriend said last night!" That she's the one getting all the attention is interesting though, because compared to the 100 plus year old Abe Vigoda, the ill fated quarterback at the end, she is a veritable spring chicken.

The rest of it was a mess though.

Oh, One more. The Volkswagen commercial where they kept punching each other was confusing, until the quick shot of Stevie Wonder punching Tracy Morgan in the arm and going "Red one", with Tracy belligerently and appropriately mystified as to how he was able to do that. That was cute.

Barkeep...it's the Superbowl. Make it a Bud Light.
(no monies or promises were made for this endorsement, but I am open to offers...)