Observations Of Events During Superbowl Weekend

All these events happened during Superbowl weekend, and are in no way in chronological order or in an order of importance.

Buggy decides to choke me out with a dual combination of a scissor lock around my neck from behind while using his hands as leverage to exert some extra pressure on my windpipe. He's learning....air flow as well as blood flow are equally important in taking down your opponent. For this I am a proud father. In addition to open palm slapping a school bus bully earlier int he school year, he is learning other techniques. A little more practice and he'll he getting in trouble at school for picking fights with older kids and winning. I'll have to scold him and explain to him why that is a bad thing, and yet, part of me will be smirking inside knowing I have raised a boy that learns to handle himself physically.

So I play along, and fake death. He checks the eyeballs by lifting the eyelids, and I have rotated the eyeballs downward so he only sees the whites of my eyes. Then he proceeded to surprise me with a move I had no idea he knew anything about. He had gone from killing dad to trying to resuscitate dad. He pulled my head up and tilted it back and with a firm grip on my nose he began to give me mouth to mouth. I stopped this before he gave me a heart stopping blow to this old guy's chest. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was bringing me back to life by giving me "face to face". After his mom came home from work, and heard this story, she was more than just a little amused at the antics of her youngest boy. I on the other hand, was less than enthused with a slight bit of his spit-laden breathing that had entered my mouth.

Later on Friday night, I had the neighbor from downstairs send up their grandson to ask why we were letting it shower in their kitchen. I was unaware of such phenomenon. So I made a check under the sink, and sure enough there was a pool of water, along with some fissures in the woodwork that allowed some of the water to leak through the floor and down out of their ceiling around the light above their kitchen sink. So, the sink and dishwasher were now off limits. I found a nice sized hole in the u-shaped pipe. So I call the property managers' number. No answer. Well, this doesn't shock me at 830 at night. I leave a message, and then again in the morning call back. I explain to the young ditsy lady in the office that the pipe has a hole in it and it leaks into the downstairs neighbors' apartment. Can she send someone over to fix it?


To that she replies, "Can it wait until Monday?"
I said, "No, I'd rather it be taken care of now. I can't use the sink or the dishwasher, which is a major inconvenience considering I pay for an apartment that comes with fully functional plumbing."

And to this she asks, "Why can't you use the kitchen sink?"
"UH, cuz there's a BIG HOLE IN THE PIPE THAT LEAKS ALL OVER IF ANY WATER FINDS ITS WAY DOWN THE DRAIN and RAINS IN THE NEIGHBORS APARTMENT...and the same if I use the DISHWASHER." I'm generally pretty easy going about whatever, bu when someone who is supposed to serve me asks a dumb question that any third grader would be fully capable of understanding the answer to, since it was already explained...well, Mookie The Sarcastic has a way of coming out.
I hear a disgusted sigh and a half hearted, "I'll see if I can't get anyone over there then.." As if somehow I have inconvenienced her. Well, I ended up waiting until this morning, Monday morning. I spoke with the maintenance guy while he checked it out and took a whole 5 minutes to solve the problem. Apparently there were a lot of issues that surfaced over the weekend that never got taken care of. I have never cared much for this young lady who works in the office. She is more concerned about getting new people in, and doesn't care much for dealing with anyone who has already signed their lease...until its time to renew anyways. She wrote it down, but from what I understand, it never got passed on to any maintenance guys to even look at the issue. Damn near the entire pipe was rusted out, almost along a seam.

There are a lot of aspects I don't like about my job either, but I do them to the same ability I do the other aspects that I do like, because its my F*&$ing job. I don't understand why these young idiots don't get this concept anymore. Guess I'm just too old fashioned in that I actually expect someone does their job the best they can do.

So for the last couple of days my wife has been schooling my oldest, Josh, on how to do dishes by hand, in a plastic tub to wash and one to rinse, and then hand dry and put everything away. I'm sure he has been scarred by such an atrocity of not being able to use an actual dish washing appliance. Even though his mother was doing the washing part for him. But good experience for the boy, as Calvin's Dad would say, "It's good for you and builds character."

Now, onto the Superbowl. Let me first say to all those rooting for Indianapolis to win: BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA

Its not so much that I am a Saints fan, but as a 49er fan, I feel an allegiance to the NFC team in the Superbowl as well as the Pro bowl. That is, as long as the NFC team is not the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, or any team made to include a certain guy we call Brett Favre. In fact, if Brett Favre we're to ever lead my beloved San Francisco 49ers to the Superbowl, I may come close to rooting against my own team. Okay, maybe not THAT bad, but I would pray for a victory almost solely on the shoulders of others and a career ending injury for the guy who can never seem to just retire and be done with it.

New Orleans was damn near killed off by wind and water a few years back by Hurricane Katrina...I wonder if a fire will erupt and burn the city down in what will be the first Mardi Gras to last at least 2 weeks? Because lets face it....there is almost always a riotous atmosphere and a car or two set ablaze in whichever city wins the Superbowl, almost always. And, New Orleans is really going to celebrate their first ever Superbowl appearance and win right on into Mardi Gras. There will be NO break in the party action. Participants will sleep in shifts to ensure the party never stops. It could be March before its all over.

Now to assess the game. While the total score tally ended up being 48 points, it was definitely a lower scoring game than predicted. And while the 31-17 score was a seeming blowout, it was much closer than that in reality. The 4th quarter pick off my Tracy Porter that was run back for a Touchdown sealed the deal, but up until that point, this was a close game that could've gone either way.

I was not surprised by the gutsy calling of Sean Payton in the first half (or the entire game for that matter) opting to go for it on fourth and goal at the 1 1/2 yd line. The play before I was sadly disappointed in the running back Mike Bell. He went off tackle right, and as he changed direction from lateral to down field towards the goal line, the idiot made a stupid mistake. HE tried to make the cut on his inside foot. I'm no superstar athlete but even I know that cutting on your inside foot always lands you on your ass, and if you don't it was merely because God himself had come down and kept you in a more upright position. Inevitably Bell never was able to plant his cleats into the turf because of this display of shoddy footwork and slipped on his face, with a little extra help from a salivating defender. It was this dumb mistake that forced the 4th and goal play to even come into question. Now, I too would have gone for it on 4th and goal, no doubt. On your opponents 1 1/2 yd line down 10-3? with about 2 minutes left? Oh yeah.
But the play calling itself was amateurish at best. The kind of thing you expect from a first year coach in a JV game at your local school, not Sean Payton who has made his season on gutsy and smart game planning schemes. He stacks two receivers left, and then runs another off tackle right square into a mess of defenders, without any help outside the Offensive line. of course he wasn't going to score. That play was dead before they ever got out of the huddle.

Coach Payton did redeem himself coming out of halftime, with a brilliant and completely unexpected onside kick call, which was recovered by the Saints, and subsequently marched down the field for a touchdown to take their first lead of the game 13-10. Indianapolis, led by future Hall of Fame QB Peyton Manning, engineered a drive to answer New Orleans and regain the lead. Then the game slowed down, in a back and forth manner, with only 1 field goal by the Saints coming prior to the last 5:30 of the game. Then with about 5:30 left in the final quarter, Drew Brees capitalizes on a failed FG attempt by Indy, and marches the ball right down the field for another touchdown, followed up by a controversial 2 pt conversion to put the Saints up 24-17. Indy comes back out, making play after play. Then it happened. Peyton Manning throws out to the outside receiver, and Tracy Porter just cuts in front of the receiver, picks it off and runs it back 73 yards to pound the nails into the coffin that held the Colts' chances of a Superbowl victory. With about 3:30 left in the game it was just too much for even Manning's comeback abilities to overcome. Eventually as the clock winded down Manning threw an incomplete pass on 4th down, giving the Saints the ball and the ability to run the clock out without running a single real play. I saw the first half of the game on TV, and had to listen to the second half on the radio. But through either venue, it was quite an exciting game. The NFC wins and Brett Favre wasn't involved. The boss will be happy, I'm happy with it. It was a good weekend overall, despite having to, as usual, work on Superbowl Sunday.
I LOVE FOOTBALL!