{"id":10655,"date":"2016-02-03T16:13:41","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T21:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=10655"},"modified":"2016-02-03T16:13:41","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T21:13:41","slug":"youre-invited-to-my-anti-super-bowl-party-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/youre-invited-to-my-anti-super-bowl-party-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"You’re Invited to My Anti Super Bowl Party 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Come to My Anti Super Bowl Party<\/h1>\n

For one brief but ugly moment last week I deserted the cynic inside me. I left the comfort of cynicism intoxicated by the sweet poison of hope. Don\u2019t worry. I\u2019m back in full vigor now. No more rose-colored glasses for me. There is comfort in cynicism. I have my security blankie\u00a0back. I am my old cynical self again.<\/p>\n

This Sunday is \u201cSuper Bowl Sunday\u201d. I notice that restaurants and some stores in my little town are closing early because of it. I find it odd that Bob Evans, which closed at 8:00 PM on Christmas Eve, is closing at 6:00 PM on Super Bowl Sunday. The sign on the door says \u201cWe will be closing at 6:00 PM on Sunday, February 7, 2016 for the Super Bowl.\u201d The store where I buy my daily newspaper also has a sign on its door. The sign reads: \u201cWe will be closing at 6:00 PM on Sunday, February 7, 2016 for the Super Bowl.\u201d That same store closed at 10:00 PM on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n

You gotta love this, I tells ya!<\/p>\n

The USA is spying on its own citizens and our cell phone calls; we\u2019re involved in two (or is it three? ) wars and aching to get into another. There are people dying, cops shooting people, people shooting cops, presidential hopefuls running amok, yet\u00a0America seems\u00a0all worked up\u00a0about a football game. Hey! It’s great to be a cavalier American! You have to admire America\u2019s ability to shrug stuff off and carry on \u2014 it must be leftover from our days as members of the British Empire \u2014 you know stiff upper lip and carry on\u2026and that sort of thing.<\/div>\n
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We laugh in the face of the starving, we sneer at the sorry state of world affairs, and we act as if we have no problems. People living in other countries must think we’re eating fattening snacks and getting intoxicated most of the time. A bunch drunks all waiting for a football game.<\/div>\n
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(Did you know our national anthem is an old English drinking song? Check it out<\/a><\/span>. This year it will be sung by Lady Gaga (is that Gah Gah or Gag a?). Let’s hope she doesn’t wear the dress made out of meat.)<\/em><\/div>\n
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Every grocery store I’ve visited recently, has aisles full of chips, beer, pop, wine, margarita mix, cardboard statues of scantily clad young ladies and football players in uniform (our grocery stores are sexist). All the drinks, snacks, and cardboard people are all presented in gala \u201cSuper Bowl Party\u201d displays.\u00a0Festive banners and ribbons and streamers abound. No one would ever guess that the world had a single problem.<\/div>\n
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I read in USA Today this week, that the average millennial spends $140 per person on junk food and drinks on Super Bowl Sunday. Can you imagine how many hungry kids we could feed for $140?<\/div>\n
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But it’s Super Bowl Weekend! \u00a0What me worry?<\/div>\n
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Restaurants in my town are closing early, because they think that everyone will be home eating pizza rolls, pizza, sandwiches, and swilling wine, margaritas and beer. But hey! What about me? Or are they using the Super Bowel as an excuse to send employees home early and save a few bucks on their \u00a0minimum wage salaries? \u00a0I am not going to watch the Super Bowl. I might want to go out to eat after 7 PM or buy a newspaper after 6 PM. But I can’t. Everything is closed. I have no choice but to sit home and brood. One thing for sure I will not be watching is the Super Bowl.<\/div>\n
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Do you even remember who won the Super Bowl last year…or even who was in it?<\/div>\n
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Whatever network is carrying the Super Bowl\u00a0is off the air from 12:00 noon until 12:00 midnight as far as I\u2019m concerned. Did you hear that coverage of the game starts at 11:00 AM\u00a0Eastern Time? Guess when kickoff is? Kickoff is at 6:28 PM. Guess when the game will end? I\u2019m guessing somewhere around 10:30 -but the post game will run on until midnight. We just can’t get enough of football and cardboard people.<\/div>\n
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You know they have a lot of high-dollar commercials to squeeze in. Lots of \u201cTV timeouts\u201d. The last time I watched a football game on TV, my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes versus the Notre Dame, in the Fiesta Bowl\u00a0(the Bucks prevailed)\u00a0, the commercials were so long I almost forgot what was going on in the game.<\/div>\n
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But all this hoopla over a football game? Peyton Manning (he does commercials well) and the Denver Broncos\u00a0versus the Cam “Fig” Newton and the\u00a0Carolina Panthers?<\/div>\n
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People are paying hundreds of dollars, even thousands of dollars, for tickets to the Super Bowl. In case you want to go, you can\u2019t \u2013it\u2019s sold out. Companies are paying tens of millions of dollars to advertise during the Super Bowl. People are spending their last dollars on junk food, beer, and soda pop for their \u201cSuper Bowl Parties\u201d yet, here in the richest country in the world, millions of kid will go to bed hungry or without a decent place to live. You gotta love our priorities!<\/div>\n
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We must look like fools to the rest of the world. We have become a bunch of infantile whiners who complain about losing our jobs and our homes while we spend money we don\u2019t have on potato chips, Fritos, Pepsi, chip dip, Miller Lite, Bud Lite, Gallo Wine, Swan Margarita mix and other foods and drinks with no nutritional value, but lots of alcoholic potential. It\u2019s important to have a Super Bowl Party and sit a around a 92\u2033Super HD2000\u00a0LEDTV\u2013 it\u2019s only $198.00 a month at Chirp\u2019s Rent-to-Own\u2013 and guzzle alcohol while unabashedly engaging in gluttonous revelry. All because why? Because the Denver Broncos, the team who plays in Mile-high stadium with low oxygen\u00a0playing the Carolina Panthers whose quarterback who dances and prances with every TD his team scores – he acts like he never scored a touchdown before in his life.<\/div>\n
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All that money wasted. Just think of the number of families that could be fed if just one of the advertisers gave to the poor what one 30-second Super Bowl commercial costs. It doesn\u2019t seem very fair, does it? Tomorrow those same revelers will be complaining they don\u2019t have they money to pay their mortgages or buy gas for their SUVs \u2013 some won\u2019t even have lunch money for their kids. So what? They saw the Stupor Bowl.<\/div>\n
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Two more things\u2026If you\u2019re one of those people who don\u2019t care about football but are going to watch it for the commercials, let me tell you something. \u00a0That’s kind of like not going to church all year long but suddenly showing up on Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n

And about those commercials…Those commercials cost millions of dollars per minute. Do you think Budweiser, PepsiCo, and the other advertisers are actually paying for those? Really? They\u2019re not, you know. You\u2019re paying for those. Every dollar they spend gets figured into their cost of doing business and when the cost gets too high and their profits get too low they\u2019ll raise the price of their products and you\u2019ll end up paying the price.<\/p>\n

So laugh at the commercials if you want. Just remember, in the end, those companies are going to stick it to you and they\u2019ll be laughing at you when you pay $10 for a six-pack of Pepsi.<\/p>\n

Take a look at how much PepsiCo paid in bonuses to their executives last year. Still laughing? If you really want to laugh and save time, just visit www.youtube.com<\/a> the day after the game. You can watch all the commercials there without sitting through almost 4 hours of over-hyped football. You can even watch YouTube videos while you chomp on chips and swill beer. I know. I’ve done it.<\/p>\n

If there is anyone else out there who isn’t taken in by all the hyperbole… you\u2019re welcome to come to my Anti-Super Bowl Party. It starts at 6:30 PM. At 7:00 PM I\u2019m going to turn on NetFlix and watch six straight episodes of “The Twilight Zone”. Do you remember Rod Serling?<\/p>\n

We’ll have fun, we’ll save money, and you’ll all drive home sober.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m having snacks too. You can have your choice of salad or you can choose one of my Lean Cuisine frozen dinners. If you get the munchies, I have pretzel rods and low-fat popcorn. I don’t have beer and but I think there may be a half bottle of cheap wine left over from Christmas. I didn’t buy any extra food, munchies or beverages for my Anti-Super Bowl Party. I will eat the stuff I already have. If I run out, you\u2019ll just have to settle for “Twilight Zone” on my little 32\u2033 LCD TV. No 92\u2033 Super High Def TV here. If you don’t like my food, bring your own. I have paper plates and plastic forks and spoons.<\/p>\n

I have plenty of coffee and water too. So if you get thirsty and that , you can have your choice between coffee or water. You won\u2019t go thirsty at my Anti-Super Bowl Party. I might even have a few jelly donuts too. Don\u2019t complain though \u2013 when they\u2019re gone, they\u2019re gone – I’d go out and buy more but, remember? Everything is closed at 7 for Super Bowl Sunday. But\u2014don\u2019t come early just for the jelly donuts. I will not answer the door before 7:00PM. I probably won\u2019t be dressed properly until then.<\/p>\n

I might decide not to answer the door after 7.<\/p>\n

The six\u00a0episodes of “Twilight Zone”\u00a0should be over by 9:35 PM, so you\u2019ll get home in plenty of time to get some sleep so you can get up for work the next morning. We don\u2019t have any \u201cpost ‘Twilight Zone’\u00a0\u201d interviews or analysis scheduled although that might be fun. I won\u2019t have any camera crews in the locker room because I don’t have a locker room – we could all crowd into my bedroom but I don’t think so. When the the sixth episode of the Twilight Zone is over, you\u2019ll be expected to leave without complaining about what crappy parties I throw.<\/p>\n

By 10:00 PM I\u2019ll be in\u00a0bed reading. You can only come to my Anti-Super Bowl party if you promise to leave right after the sixth episode of the “Twilight Zone”\u00a0is over. You are not going to sit around\u00a0at my\u00a0and talk or pretend to enjoy each my\u00a0company; why should you? No one else does. Also, I hate small talk almost as much as I hate the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

Consider yourself warned!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be hospitable as long as you\u2019re quiet during “Twilight Zone” and don\u2019t complain about the food. You can have all the water you want to drink, but if you want something else, when the half bottle of wine is gone, you’ll be out of luck. You\u2019ll either have to leave or go without. It\u2019s the best I can do. We\u2019re counting our pennies around here, and I am not going out to buy a bunch of junk just because you\u2019re coming to over. Bring your own food. If you eat a lot bring a lot of food.<\/p>\n

If my party sounds like a great evening to you, you\u2019re my kind of person.<\/p>\n

Bring some food and drink… party hearty!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Come to My Anti Super Bowl Party For one brief but ugly moment last week I deserted the cynic inside me. I left the comfort of cynicism intoxicated by the sweet poison of hope. Don\u2019t worry. I\u2019m back in full vigor now. No more rose-colored glasses for me. There is comfort in cynicism. I have my security blankie\u00a0back.\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10656,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655\/revisions\/10656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}