Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 42
I am writing today, at the end of two blizzards. In between my last writing and today there were a few hockey games, a Super Bowl, and snow. Lots of it. I make my domicile in suburban Maryland, not quite Baltimore and not quite the District of Columbia. They tell us, regularly, that we who reside here cannot deal with snow.
I have no quarrel with that statement. All empirical evidence points to it being a fact. Snow is apparently (see the above-referenced quotation) scary stuff.
I cannot be certain, as it has all begun to blur together, but I believe I have shoveled snow every day since Saturday last. I cannot tell you the date today, I simply don't know. I have shoveled and re-shoveled and re-re-shoveled. If you live near me, you know what I mean. Before this week, I was a "snow person." Now, I wanna live in the tropics.
Snow brings the family together, in a fighting kind of way. Tempers have grown short, games that once amused are deemed "boring", and much food has been consumed. Apparently, one develops a taste for pancakes and pot roasts while the gods of Winter rage outside. So be it. I guess I can exercise in July - when I can complain about the heat and humidity.
There was a Super Bowl five days ago, wherein the underdog Saints emerged victorious. Perhaps my heart isn't as idiotic as I'd thought (no no no, it's plenty dumb). There's nothing I can say about the game that would be as amusing as Bill Simmons' ESPN article about "The Manning Face". Part of me feels bad for ole' Peyton, and another doesn't. Hey - how about this? The Super Bowl was a pretty good game again. That gives us 3 of the past 4 (Sorry, the Chicago/Indy game sucked) as good ones. I think the games have been competitive since the 2001 laugher bewteen Baltimore and the NY Giants. That's pretty good, right? Anyway, enough football, there's always next year if you are like me, and your team wasn't that good.
The "big game" spawned all this "big commercial" crapola. OK, I get it, a ton of people watch it so there's a captive audience and it's the IDEAL moment to spring this year's selection of dumb action movies and pithy catch phrases. What-friggin'-ever. The Letterman spot was funny. The Dorito's commercial with the bark collar was funny. Blah to the rest, if I even paid attention. I guess I didn't. Alot of people, they say, watched. Duh - we were all stuck in our houses wondering why God hates us so much he gave us all this snow.
There was -oh, by the way - a great nail-biter of a hockey game on Sunday, too. The Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins played a regular season game as if it were a seventh-game Stanley Cup final. If you missed it, well, your loss. Caps were down 4-1 and tied it and potted the winner in OT. Ovechkin potted a hat. Crosby had 2, I think. Hard-hitting. Fast skating. Zippy passes. It encapsulated why ice hockey is the best game in this world. Someday, I'll get to that "why hockey is the greatest" blog.
Not this day. Enjoy your snow shovels, you might need them again soon.
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