Category Archives: Sports

How Facebook Saved the Superbowl

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Every technological advance contains cost; functionality does not always transfer. Some time over the holidays, after wrestling with Verizon FiOS, I finally pulled the plug on the cable. Verizon still provides my internet and phone, but I watch TV on the Roku box. Between Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime Instant Video, I had everything I needed as far as content for the idiot screen.

Until I had to watch the Super Bowl. The game was on CBS, and live streaming at cbsports.com, but the Roku does not live stream. So that means that I needed to supplement my up-to-the-minute tech with a throwback to my pre-digital youth: a set of rabbit ears for an HDTV.

Remember me? Remember how I required a series of movements and rituals to function properly? Remember how I would stop working anyway? HAHAHAHAHA!

So after church, mother, baby and I rolled into Target, seeking the digital equivalent of the old signal-diviners I used to scan UHF channels back in the 80′s. There are several models, all of which use a coaxial jack, which information prompted an arduous attempt by both of us to remember if our TV even has a coaxial jack. We conclude that it must, because we used to have cable. We then rummage around the store to collect items for our Target co-pay (it is not possible to get out of Target for under $50. That’s what the security guard is really checking for). Since we’re watching the game, we I want football-watching-type food: high-fat, high-calorie, high-chance-of-morning-regret little bits of fried yumminess. Also, some sheets.

And we take all this swag into the house, and we feed the baby, and we the missus futzes with the wall mount to get the coaxial plugged in, and . . . we get FOX. We fart around with the antennae. We get FOX and PBS. We try some more. We get FOX, PBS, and ABC. We give up and watch a few episodes of Parks and Recreation while Nora naps. We try some more. We get nothing. I complain on Facebook:

  Andrew J. Patrick

21 hours ago via mobile
So I buys a digital antenna so’s I can watch the game, having no cable as I do. And we have to futz with the mount on our TV to install it. And we get Fox, UPN, and PBS. Lame.

This prompts my aunt to come to my rescue, as she lives around the corner and has the game on hi-def, big screen. We head on over, pick up the family platter from Famous Daves right before kickoff. The rest, you know.


My favorite commercial.

And then, the lights went out, and for 34 minutes on Facebook, we all became wits:

Even electricity thinks this game is over.

Is FEMA running the super bowl?

Previously on superbowl

If I were in the Superdome right now, I’d be on the lookout for Bane.

Buffalo Wild Wings strikes again

Lots of things in New Orleans are half lit…what’s the big deal?!

Yeah we all needed to lose another 34 minutes of sleep before a Monday morning of work, right?

Some of those are mine, most aren’t. And then there were the visuals:

Needs no explanation, unless you’re an uncultured whippersnapper.

And this social media outlet saved me from having to emit to my host and hostess my usual whine about football commentators being the dumbest form of fauna in our ecosystem.

So when the game started again, I had to say:

I hope the Ravens win, because if the 49ers come back and win after all that, the City of Baltimore will be complaining about it until the end of time.

There are men of a certain age who still remember the Colts sneaking out of the city in the dead of night without warning, and can speak of it only with bitterness. My hope was that the current crop of Ravens fans would be spared that. But as it turns out, the 49ers belonged in the Super Bowl, and my prophecy nearly came true. But only nearly. As it turns out, the Ravens’ defense had just enough backbone to keep Kaepernick et al. from taking the lead. And that may be the first time I’ve ever seen a team deliberately give the other team points.

So what have we learned?

That Facebook Save My Super Bowl twice. Once by allowing me to watch it, and once by giving me something to do when it stopped.

I Know Everyone’s All Excited About Peyton Manning….

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…and it’s good to see him whup the living crap out of Pittsburgh, but I’d like to point out that the Vikings also won.

And how did they win?

Petersen had 84 yards and 2 TD’s, for thing.

Chris Ponder was solid, 20 for 27 and 270 yards passing, no picks, for another.

But more to the damn point, they toughed out an almost impossible situation. The Jaguars scored with a minute to go to bring the game to 21-20. Then they got the 2-point conversion.

At this point, most teams would have given up, eaten the win, and started talking to the press about all the things they did well that week.

Instead the Vikings rallied, and hit the long field goal to tie it up. Then they gave the ball to Petersen and he put them in range of another field goal. Which they got.

I’ve almost never seen the Vikings do that. They have a tendency to fold under pressure. This was a most refreshing tonic indeed.

The Olympics Make No Sense

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I don’t get anything about what I’ve been watching for the last few days. Maybe for the past few Olympics. Things were simpler when I was a kid, when the Olympics were nothing more than the Cold War in athletic form. It seemed to matter then; I seemed to care. But every passing of the torch leaves me sitting in blinking bemusement on my couch, asking a series of snarky questions that all amount to “what the hell is going on?”

So am I drunk, or did I actually watch the Queen of England pretend to parachute from a plane with the actor who plays James Bond? And is it no more than a sign of creeping age that I can not help but wonder if her father was even asked to do anything remotely theatrical at the last London Olympics in ’48?

And could Danny Boyle really come up with no better way to illustrate the change from an industrial to a digital Britain than an ersatz After-School Special set to every last hit song from the 1960′s forward, the message of which seemed to be that cell phones lead to house party sex? And why did the one song NBC had to cut off for station identification have to be “Pretty Vacant”, which would seem to be the theme of the whole exercise?

But more important, do we really need all of that to interest us in the Olympics? Must every opening ceremony be a three-hour multimedia infomercial for the host country? Can’t they just run the torch in and make with the volleyball?

Of course, if everything just started with the Parade of Nations, I’d still find myself crabbing about, of all things, clothes. I don’t know why the Russian team was wearing cowboy hats and the American team was wearing berets. I don’t know who told the German team that they looked good dressed as Teletubbies. I don’t know why the British team went with the Gay Astronaut look. All I know is that the dishdashas worn by Arab athletes looked stately and dignified by comparison. Clearly the terrorists’ mind control experiments are a success.

And then, two weeks of gymnastics, the figure skating of the Summer games. Every four years I have to re-learn the difference between a lutz and a salchow, and every four years I feel the compulsion to yell at a group of teenage tumblers regarding their failure to Stick The Landing. Meanwhile, a 33-year-old skeet shooter from El Monte, CA, just became the first American athlete to win five individual medals in five consecutive Olympics. They couldn’t show that instead of the Men’s Semifinal Qualifying Non-medal Heat?

For more on the inherent creepiness of girls’ women’s gymnastics, see Stacy McCain.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to shout “USA! USA!” louder, so I can avoid the quadrennial complaint about the lack of javelin and fencing coverage.

So Shall I Assume That All the People Who Can’t Let a Breath Go By Without Attacking Tim Tebow are in Unrequited Love?

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Here’s the thing about me and football: I enjoy it. I like watching it. I like seeing two well-matched teams struggle for four quarters. But that’s it. I don’t own any jerseys (couple of hats and a shirt, but that’s it). I root for the same team my father roots for, the Minnesota Vikings, even though I didn’t grow up in Minnesota. I also like the Ravens, as they’re the hometown team, and a good one. But I don’t cry when they lose (okay, maybe a little after that 1999 NFC Championship game).

And I don’t hate other teams that much, save for a lingering childhood enmity of the Redskins (due to the 1987 NFC Championship game, among other reasons). I don’t hate the Cowboys, like everyone else seems to. I don’t hate the Steelers, as everyone between Annapolis and the Mason-Dixon Line does. I don’t even hate the  Patriots, even though I agree that Belichick should have been seriously punished.

So I find the raging hostility to Tim Tebow a bit mystifying. People: he’s a football player, deserving of no judgement other than his abilities at same. He had the performance of the season this year, coming back to win games that the Broncos should have been out of. It ended yesterday, as I predicted, because the Broncos are not the Patriots, and Tim Tebow is not Tom Brady.

Tebow is what he is, and what he is doesn’t deserve the calumny or the obnoxious snark. He’s not the worst quarterback or the most overrated quarterback. He’s a Heissman winner struggling to put together a skill set that will make him successful as a pro, after discovering, like a lot of Heissman winners, that his existing skill set won’t do that on its own. And based on what I saw this season, he’s already a better player than a lot of guys who walked that path (Vinny Testaverde anyone?).

The “Tebowing” meme confuses even more. Maybe it’s because I’m a dirty Papist, but I “Tebow” several times a Sunday. It’s called kneeling, and us Godbothering Christers do it from time to time. He’s not hurting anyone. He’s not howling out for the blood of Jews or Muslims or Whores and Fornicators or Gays. He’s offering thanks to the deity he believes in. If he wasn’t white, no one would even notice.

So let it the hell go already. You don’t know the guy, and he doesn’t know you. He puts on a uniform and plays a highly-regulated gladiatorial game for your entertainment. Significance redounds to him precisely to the degree that you grant it. If you insist on hating him, he will never care.

St. Joe’s Owns Villanova

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It’s no secret to those who read by “About” section, but I went to St. Joseph’s University, to receive instruction from a sinster cabal of Jesuits.

Anytime we beat Villanova, it matters, because we care about the rivalry, but ‘Nova doesn’t.

74-58. Nice.

The Good Greatsby Owns the Packers

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But he’s prepared to buy low and sell high:

I should make clear, just because I’m prevented from owning another team doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be willing to sell my share back to the Packers in the event someone wants to give me a majority in an NFL team for Christmas. (Note: Please don’t buy me the Miami Dolphins. Or the Seattle Seahawks. Or the Chicago Bears as long as Jay Cutler is the quarterback. I’ve asked around and nobody is sure whether the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars still exist, but if they do, I’m not interested. Cincinnati Bengals need not apply.)

Note that he does not mention the Vikings, which is rather a glaring omission for a Cheesehead. Or he completely dismisses the notion that anyone would want to own the Vikings; the sagacity of which I cannot dispute.

Tebow Keeps Missing the Memo About Losing

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Let’s be real here for a second.

The Broncos haven’t played anyone good except the Lions, who are not that good. The 2-10 Vikings almost beat them. The 2nd-stringer-led Bears almost beat them. Even if they make the playoffs, either the Steelers, Pats, Texans, or Ravens will make short work of them. More importantly, let’s not forget that this is basically the Packers’ year.

But watching the NFL chattering class try to figure out how this Tebow kid keeps putting together wins at the last minute is fun. Watching people who confuse their antipathy to his religion with a just assessment of his abilities squirm is fun. In general, watching the comeback kid comeback satisfies all one’s wishes for a Cinderella story for the season.

It remains to be seen whether the kid can improve his passing game enough to really be a premiere quarterback. But to whatever extent he can improve them, he will. Among the thoroughbreds who play QB in the NFL, Tebow is that rara avis, a man with something to prove.