The Supercalifragilistic Bowl
The Super Bowl. Millions around the world tune in to see the NFL championship game every year. You watched it, didn't you? At least until it become evident (once more) that the AFC was going to get its collective derriere handed to it by the NFC. Another lop-sided blow-out to serve as an over-hyped anticlimax to the NFL season.
But, you saw it, right? I saw it, too. Although separated by oceans, continents and political boundaries, we have a shared experience.
Or do we? I've been rattling on and on about how different things are in Taiwan. (duh...like whaddaya expect? It's a whole 'nuther friggin' foreign country, dude! Whatever...) Therefore, I feel justified in taking this 'shared experience', thrashing this dead horse a bit and more or less dramatically illustrate just how dissimilar our respective kettles of aquatic vertebrates really are.
(Mostly, I just want to quack about the Super Bowl. I promise I won't actually talk about play on the field; the Oakland Raiders, as good as they were, got whupped plain and simple. Congrats and 'props' to the long-suffering Tampa Bay organization and fans. I'm from Chicago so I could give two squirts about who won as long as a decent, competitive game was played for once. That didn't happen. Obviously. But I cannot help but voice my complaints about the poor quality of the telecast.
To wit: CBS must have blown their budgetary wad on dancers and pop music performers and pyrotechnics. This was definitely not the 'A' list of sports commentators. Dick Stockton? Have there been major break-throughs in cryogenics? I thought he was dead. His play-by-play was in time-delay as if he was watching a video feed echoed from the moon. He actually called Martin Grammatica "the diminutive Argentinian" and referred to Mike Alstott as "a big, burley, bruising bull of a running back". Perhaps this was meant as 'old school sports journalism'. Corn like that should only come in cans.
And who's bright idea was it to script the game as "NFL for Dummies"? ('The team with the ball is called the 'Aw-fense'. Repeat after me. 'Aw-fense'. The team without the ball is called the 'Dee-fense' from the Latin 'dêfênsa' the feminine past participle of 'dêfendere', 'to bore to death by stating the obvious'.)
In a blatant attempt to head off any lingering controversy over lame officiating, Mr Peepers, a Wally Cox impersonator, was chosen as the referee who promptly bungled the set up for the coin-toss, referring to the Bucs as the visiting team then attempted to induce the team captains to 'dosey-doe' so that they might face their respective opponents' end-zone after the toss.
Latest Articles