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Super football; not so great commercials

Last night’s Super Bowl was super. I’m not saying that because I rooted for New Orleans. It was perhaps the best football game out of maybe a handful of Super Bowls I have watched since SB No.I.

The way I came to that decision was realizing that the game was just flying by. I’d look up and all of a sudden it was the 2nd quarter. It was the half. The Who, I don’t care what anyone says, they are great — even for 12 minutes. Then came that fabulous onside kick by the Saints at the start of the 3rd quarter. When cornerback Tracy Porter snatched away a pass from the Colts’ spectacular quarterback, Peyton Manning, and ran it 74 yards for the end zone, the deal was sealed.

The TV commercials, for which all those years I would watch a Super Bowl that sucked, were not all that great during this one. Probably the most memorable one will be the Snickers ad with ancient actors Betty White and Abe Vigoda. Like someone once observed, just saying “Abe Vigoda” does something to you.

I am happy the Saints won for the people of New Orleans, for the Saints fans and for me. That joy is kind of tempered by learning later in the night in a text from my good friend in Arkansas that her dad passed away after a long bout with cancer. I didn’t know him that well but when your friends hurt, well, I can empathize since I lost both of my parents within nine months of each other.

I don’t know how to end this. Sometimes you can do it. If I was under deadline I could do it. But I’m not and and I can’t. So I’ll just say bye for now or something similar as this.

(Sorry, the latter phrase is from a song by Traffic called “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.” It was written by the late Jim Capaldi and Steve Winwood when they played with the group in 1971. Winwood — who sang the song — also performed his 1986 solo hit “Higher Love” at the Super Bowl VIP Pre-Show Sunday. The performance was broadcast during one of the CBS pre-game shows. Here is the MTV video — Warning: May be short commercial before the video, but it’s worth it. Trust me. I never lie. And I’m always right.)

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Who Dat fever: Riding the bandwagon with no remorse

Edited version: I missed an “I.” It’s XLIV instead of XLV. And 44 instead of 45. But what’s a year or two among good Romans? And, if there happens to be any Indianapolis  fans out there, here is a little tune to get stuck in your head while the Saints are winning.

This year, unlike many years before, I am pumped up about the Super Bowl.

What is this, the 42nd National Football League championship, or XLIVif you like the NFL’s Roman numeral version? I am sure there is some reason why the NFL has used Roman numerals all these years, but I don’t know why and don’t care. I just know that I probably haven’t really looked forward to watching the Super Bowl — for football and not the commercials — since probably No. XX. That was when Mike Ditka’s wacky bunch of Chicago bears, including Jim McMahon and William “Refrigerator” Perry as well as superb running back Walter “Sweetness” Payton played and beat New England.

There is some irony in that particular game as it relates to XLIV. That game was played in the Louisiana Superdome, home of NFC champs the Saints. Also, the Bears’ defensive coach, who said that the team had wasted its draft pick earlier that year on “The Fridge” Perry, was none other than Buddy Ryan, whose son, Rex, was head coach of AFC championship loser New York Jets. Buddy Ryan is a whole ‘nother story in itself. All the ties are like playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, only its not.

Wonder if the referees stopped at Best Buy in Beaumont on the way to Miami?

But yeah, I plan to be in front of the TV starting about 1 p.m. Sunday to catch all the hype leading up to the game. That is because of the New Orleans Saints. I suppose I have been rooting for the Saints since they returned to play in the Superdome after the devastating Hurricane Katrina. I know that isn’t being a fan for very long in their 40-something year history, but after all, they really sucked for so many years.

That sounds rude, I know. But I am not the only one on the Saints’ bandwagon who is riding along and doesn’t, frankly my dear, give a damn what anyone says.

I saw the evacuees from Katrina pouring across the Texas line into my area of Southeast Texas. Then, they had to evacuate once more as Hurricane Rita pounded just about the easternmost fourth of Texas. Even though I was 80 miles away from the Gulf during Rita, it was “hurricaning” outside. Then came Hurricane Humberto in 2007, which I slept through. Next was Hurricane Ike the following year which I watched for most of the night as it whipped through Beaumont.

Fortunately, I didn’t suffer much from any of those storms except for the lack of electricity for a number of days. But my neighbors in Southeast Texas  and Southwest Louisiana did, some greatly. So you might say my cheering on the long-suffering Saints was a matter of “hurricane-related empathy.”

It is going to be a more difficult task to root for the Saints too, because they are playing the Indianapolis Colts. I like them as well. Or rather, I like Peyton Manning, who many think IS the Colts. But I will not have near the difficulty in loyalty that Manning’s family will. Dad Archie, of course, was the Saints quarterback in the bad old days. Thus, Giants quarterback and Peyton’s brother Eli, and non-pro football brother Cooper, all have ties to the Saints. So did Petyon. Rick Reilly, the ESPN Magazine scribe who is without a doubt one of the best sportswriters around these days, wrote a piece on ESPN.com the other day about the Manning family’s dilemma. It sounds damn near excrutiating, not only because of their family ties to New Orleans and the Saints, but because of what it means for the Saints to be playing in the Super Bowl after years of failure and then Katrina.

“In summary,” wrote Reilly, “you must either have had your heart removed by corn tongs or be in the Manning family if you’re not pulling for the Saints.”

I couldn’t agree more.

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Something to think about when you are on hold

Hello?

Remember the old days when you had a telephone installed and the man from Ma Bell did all the magic stuff he did and ta-ta!? You got yourself a real telephone. A big momma with a rotary dial and built sturdy enough to beat an intruder half to death.

Well, a lot of much younger folks might not. I do remember rotary dial phones. The first phone that I can remember in the second house in which I grew up was a rotary dial. A note: The first house I lived in — from birth until I was around 10 — didn’t have a phone that I can remember. I seem to remember hearing my parents had a phone at some point in time in “the old house” but I don’t remember it. Nevertheless.

My first phone, after I got out of the Navy and worked as a firefighter, was a touch tone. That had the same keypad layout you see to day. Those type of phones also were a transition to life without a central switching office with actual humans who would dial the number for you. Can you imagine that?

Of course, I am not old enough to remember depending entirely on an operator for a call. But you would have to call an operator to make a long distance or collect call, as well as for local information. The mother of a friend from high school worked as an operator in the little telephone building in my hometown. I could always tell her voice when I dialed “O.”

This was before the days of recorded voices telling you which numbers to punch, driving a sane person half mad and and a mad person insane. That was what happened today. It’s kind of involved, but these days when you deal with a cell company, it’s always that way. I don’t have a land line these days, BTW. (Oh come on, you know that means “By the Way.” Get with it!)

I recently switched my phone service from T-Mobile to Verizon because Verizon provides my wireless Internet.—> I went to the Verizon store and got a new phone, but not the one I wanted. —> The phone I bought had a faulty camera. (Wow, when I was a kid I could have never imagined a camera on my phone. I couldn’t have imagined a phone one takes everywhere.) —> I got into an argument with the store guy because I didn’t feel like I should have paid a $35 restocking fee to make a basic dollar-for-dollar trade. —> I raised a little hell with Verizon, then I raised a lot more hell. —> The company waived the restocking fee and sent me a “new” phone. It wasn’t new, however. It was used and a Blackberry. I didn’t want a Blackberry. The phone I wanted already had mobile Internet access. Wow. What’s an Internets? —> Today I finally got my phone. I programmed it but had to call Verizon six times to get everything I needed done.

And there you are. I live in a time I never imagined as a kid except,  perhaps, when playing like I was Dick Tracy from the “Funnies” and the weird-looking detective who wore an interactive TV on his wrist watch.

So today, we have tiny little telephones that can communicate over a wide world and find out damn near anything — although you have to be careful as to the veracity — and write little messages damn near anytime. You can take pictures and just send them right over the phone. I can even make a video. On my phone!

But to do all of this, we have to go through our own little brand of Hell. Instruction books one receives when you get a new phone, or computer or TV are basically little pamphlets that don’t instruct. When one calls “customer service,” the path is littered with voice “prompts” at every turn, followed often by waiting to speak with someone which can sometime last hours. Finally, you might talk with someone who works who knows where and who knows what they are talking about, or not.

This all leads me to ask: What price for magical methods of communicating on devices which are built as much as for convenience as they are for the actual act of communicating with someone?

Sometimes, I think the answer to such a question is “a lot.”

You could get Miz Jeanette, the operator, by simply dialing “O.” You could speak with a person you know. If you were a few cents short to make a call at the pay phone outside the phone company, it wasn’t a big deal. You didn’t have to yell and raise nine kinds of hell to get results in your favor. That was unthinkable. You could get results, most of the time, by being polite.

It’s too trite to paraphrase Bob Dylan that the “times, they are a’ changing.” But I did. Damn. I got to go and check my e-mail.

Your what?

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No longer on the "No Fly" list, maybe

Well, the good news is I’ve been cleared from the “No Fly” list.  I think.

I’m referring to an October incident in which I was not allowed to print a boarding pass prior to a flight to Memphis. The airline folks said it was something like the “No Fly” list in which a passenger is screened for extra security by the Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Nothing happened except I was inconvenienced by having to check in at the Continental ticket counter. I didn’t go through any extra scrutiny by TSA in the actual screening before the flight. No pat downs, no wands and thankfully no cavity searches. Just take off your shoes. Pull your computer out. And, this was new, take out your CPAP machine, which I use for sleep apnea.

On my return flight to Texas, I had no problem printing a boarding pass.

Later, I found a link on the TSA Web site where one can receive information on how to clear your name if you wind up on a watch list or have something happen which requires added security. It’s called TRIP, appropriately named, not because of the obvious reference to “trip” — as in taking a trip by flying. I think its name fits because the whole experience is a “trip.” Wow man. Far out. Groovy.

You can file your redress request online and you get a “Control Number.” This allows you to track your request, kind of like tracking a package on FedEx but much slower. The only time I tracked my case, it noted that my request had been decided and I would be replied to in writing. That seemed like two months ago.

But lo and behold, I received a letter yesterday from the Department of Homeland Security. It stated:

“In response to your request, we conducted a review of any applicable records in consultation with other Federal agencies, as appropriate. Where it was determined that a correction to records was warranted, these records were modified to address any delay or denial of boarding that you may have experienced as a result of the watch list screening process.”

So that sounds as if the DHS did something concerning my experience, or maybe not. But the department did acknowledge what I “may have experienced” was a result of the “watch list” process. Thus, one would think by that language that they had me on a “watch list.”  Why, I would be watched, I can”t imagine. I’m the dullest person this side of the Sabine River these days. I used to raise hell when I was younger, but I was never what one could call a radical. Well, relatively speaking.

All”s well that ends well, though. Hopefully. The National Security Agency or TSA itself will probably read this and put me back on a watch list, for whatever reason. Or even worse, I’ll be flying somewhere some day and all of a sudden an air marshal will pluck me out of my seat, throw me down on the cabin floor and handcuff me. If that happens, I might know the reason for it in such an instance, or at least part of the reason.

CBS News broke a story a couple of nights ago about what appears to be rampant discrimination in the TSA’s air marshal program. There is a whole list of minorities and other groups the flying cops like to target for some type of hassle or another. On that list are disabled veterans.

Now I’m not a disabled veteran. Well, I’m somewhat disabled due to my medical problems, from chronic pain at least. And I am a veteran. But I am not what is called a disabled veteran in the government sense, also known as “service-connected.” That means the disability was a result of or happened during military service.

I have been looking on the Web and have been unable to find why the air marshals are all up in the air, pun intended, when it comes to disabled veterans. The only possible beef I could think of is that “qualified disabled veterans” receive a 10 percent advantage over people with no military service or service-connected disability when it comes to hiring for a federal job such as air marshal. I don’t know if that is it or not.

However, the CBS report indicated many of the air marshals who were said to be in a snit were former Secret Service agents. That too is a federal job. So I don’t know.

It will be interesting to see if DHS finds anything in their investigation and, if so, will do anything. In the meantime, I am going to try and stay off the watch list, or better yet, stay off airliners.



	


	





		

		
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Groundhog day predictions: Get real!
	


	
	

		
Happy Groundhog Day.


Seriously, some people actually celebrate the day the townsfolk of Punxsutawney, Pa., drag the cuddly little rodent Punxsutawney Phil out of his hole to predict the fate of winter. It is six more weeks if Phil sees its shadow or winter will come to an end in six weeks if no shadow falls from the little groundhog.


Phil saw its shadow today or so say his handlers. We can go on the supposition that groundhogs recognize shadows, in their own little groundhog way. Whether or not they can predict weather is a matter of belief, such as Santa Claus. Of course, anyone with any sense knows damn well that Santa is real.


There are tons of Punxsutawney Phil knockoffs these days: Gen. Beauregard Lee of Atlanta, Buckeye Chuck of Ohio, Jimmy the Groundhog of Wisconsin and so forth. Whether these weather prediction experts see their shadow and foretell winter matters more on geography and meteorology than true superstition.


We don’t have a groundhog to forecast weather here in Beaumont, on the upper Texas coast near Louisiana. Hell, I don’t even know if we have groundhogs in Texas. I will check and get back with you on that, but don’t hold your breath, please. I suppose we would have to come up with a nutria with a Cajun name, such as Boudreaux Bill or something of that ilk if we were to have a Phil impersonator. Since we average nearly 60 inches of precipitation a year, it would be a good bet that Boudreaux wouldn’t see his shadow. It depends, of course, on the time of day and the time of year.


I think a lot of TV stations miss out on a bet by not having their weatherman come out of a hole on Groundhog Day. A hole is where some of them certainly belong. I won’t mention any names.


Personally, when I see my shadow on groundhog day it means the sun is shining or the cops have hit me with a spotlight. My prediction: six more weeks of winter. A late snow in February. Then, smooth sailing about mid-March. That’s just a guess. But it works for me.