Monday, February 02, 2015

super sunday

the grocery store had both seahawk and patriot flags up, hedging their bets i guess, but apparently everyone had to choose sides, you couldn't be neutral. people who don't care or don't watch are deliberately going against the tide, so i try not to make a big deal out of the fact that i didn't watch. of course i cared though, because i care about people, and people care. it was everything. it was the game.

the streets were empty for most of the day. apparently everyone got their supplies on saturday, because the market was packed on saturday. by today they had everything they needed, and they were kicking back and having huge parties; one was on our street. you can tell when dozens of cars are parked in a single area, something's going on, somebody's got the big wide-screen, has all the good food and drink. what i don't get is, texas shouldn't care about a new england - seattle game, but apparently they care a lot. then what happens if some seahawk fans and new england fans are getting drunk at the same party? or, as what happened tonight, the game was really close or even disputed? one can only guess. i can tell you, people cared a lot.

some news story said that one quarter of americans thought god would decide who won the super bowl. people are tough on this quarter of americans, but if you think about it, god might decide everything anyway, so it's not unreasonable, and there are all kinds of people who do believe in a master plan, for very good reasons, & we shouldn't put them down. but when i heard that, i thought, now i know who's been letting the air out of all those footballs, and i wondered if that would happen again, or if god just wanted to make sure the patriots made it as far as they did. it could be that god just likes a good party, likes to get all these americans in front of a television so he can mess with them. or, it could be that he's just like all these texans, he has to watch on some big-screen television, and he lays in supplies, kicks back and really doesn't have much control over the outcome.

i don't hear much about people betting on the outcome, though i'm sure a lot of people do. you can bet all kinds of scores, patriots by four, patriots by twenty, or whatever, and see how close you can get. closest wins the office pool. i'm not sure if anyone even does this anymore, maybe all that betting has gone online and people try their luck, or skill, with thousands of anonymous pikers. i always feel like people know tons more than i do about such things. but luck could be on my side, you never know how this stuff will turn out. i'm like my dad, one world series the office wanted him to bet on the world series, because they needed a couple of people to fill out the chart. everyone was picking yankees in four, or dodgers in four, depending on their strong allegiance to one team or the other. but he had to pick yankees in seven, because he was one of the last betters, and sure enough yankees won in seven, and unfortunately for him, though they'd begged him to enter, now they were mad at him because they knew he really didn't have a clue who would win, he was just doing them a favor. he won the office pool but he lost the pr battle to stay in good relations with your co-workers.

on facebook the sound of music meme has returned, with julie andrews dancing in the mountains saying she doesn't care about football. this is kind of like what i mentioned, going against the grain. if you actually make a post about it, obviously you do care, you care at least enough to tell everyone you don't. i'm the opposite. i just admit i care, but don't watch. that way i can notice better how people react. what do they find most interesting about the whole experience? it's a huge cultural event, it gets more viewers than any other television experience, and commercials are priced accordingly. some people watch it for the commercials alone, which are the best of the year, albeit mostly directed at men. but in texas, they also cared a lot about the college football championship, ohio state versus oregon, and it got an equally huge number of viewers. they have beautiful weather here - it's dry, cool, sunny, sunrises and sunsets all over the place, but on these nights everyone is partying. watching the games. building their lives around them.

who knows what god's thinking? my guess is, it's a re-enactment of the old christians and lions thing, but we're not supposed to figure that out right away, that will be left to historians that sift through the ancient records. back in the day, you had these huge stadiums, and they were packed, and everyone watched it on television too, and these poor victims clobbered each other until they got concussions. but everyone cared a lot about the outcome, so they kept doing it, year after year. god was wondering if anyone would point out that it was killing people, but alas, people knew that, and it still kept on going. people got into it, people cared.

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