Gonna be offline during the game. But, I'm with you.
Grossman isn't Jewish, you know. Neither were Flo Ziegfeld and Darryl Zanuck.
I don't know why you're expecting us to be surprised that an NFL player isn't Jewish, John.
I look forward to seeing Grossman run away from the field in terror, Brian Griese carried off by a giant bird, and this guy come in to captain the Bears to victory.
Another year where we can't use:
A furore normannorum libera nos domine.
I'm a Patrtiots fan and I'll be at a friend's party, drinking Moxie and cheering for Chicago.
I realize that not all NFL players are Jewish, but that's the null hypothesis, isn't it?
Cirque du Soleil? Does pregame always resemble opening ceremonies of the Olympics? (I saw 5 minutes while I was grabbing coffee...it's all I'll see.)
WWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ok, going offline now
I'm a Patrtiots fan and I'll be at a friend's party, drinking Moxie and cheering for Chicago.
This Patriots fan remembers 1985, and "New England, the Patriots and me". Both teams must lose.
Eat your heart out, Superbowl Shuffle.
I was sure that "salesgenie" ad was a joke. But no.
The commercials suck so far. I like the Letterman one, though.
That has been the best so far, agreed. I thought the "Pride" commercial was a joke too. You show those racist ... swim coaches
I thought exactly the same thing. "Is SNL on CBS now?" Also: the bizarre Garmin commercial. What is going on? (Although I remember the Japanese robot shows that one was based on. I think I might have had one of the robot figures, too.)
And the homoerotic Snickers™ commercial. ' the fuck?
His intangibles will reemerge later, doubtless.
So, will Grossman hit a pass > 20 yards today?
At this stage of the game, a two point lead looks almost unsurmountable.
Agree with Emerson. Also, Prince is 48 years old. Scary.
I hope there aren't pograms when Grossman loses this one. It's wrong to blame all Jews for the crimes of one. They didn't all kill our Lord, either, just a few of them.
If the Colts win, it's a clear sign that God hates all of us, and then it's even money George Bush will still be President come 2009.
My dilemna is thus. I'd like to see Manning lose while enduring a series of bone crushing sacks. However, Rob Morris, linebacker for the Colts, is my wife's cousin, and it would rule if he got a ring.
I went to a meeting of the local branch of the National Women's Political Caucus today that was deliberately scheduled to conflict with the Superbowl.
"National Women's Political Caucus" s/b "Man Haters of Greater Los Angeles"
26: How'd you know? The entire meeting was spent talking about how evil men are.
But now that I've followed Ogged's links, I'm rooting for the Bears.
I nominate the Robert Goulet ad. Best yet.
Seems like the Bears are kind of sucky. In my professional judgement I mean.
So I'm supposed to go back to thinking that football is basically the stupid sport of evil and sucky men?
Okay, that was easy.
"So many examples of America's speert ... Good people doing great things on the CBS evening news." -- Katie Couric heralds teh apocalypse makes America feel good about itself again.
Also, jobbing.com are going to want their money back.
Gonerill isn't your appointed superior, B. Just wait for Tim to tell you what to think.
After that break I now associate Budweiser with crabs. Your Madison Avenue dollars at work.
What was up with all those lame lame commercials for Bud Light? or what ever light lager it was that was being advertised -- no I'm pretty sure it was Budweiser's. Like they had an ESL class in which foreign men were being taught to say "Bud Light" over and over again, and at the end were taught to say "No speak Eengleesh" in response to somebody asking them for a Bud Light. That was about the stupidest beer commercial evar. And the competition is not light.
Beer ads should stick with the classic theme of Tits and Ass.
D-squared is advocating for Budweiser. Contrarianism will be the death of that boy.
Ya know, I was thinkin' earlier that this looked like a high school football game: bad announcers who don't care, players bumbling at night, in the rain, playing pretty bad.
Scratch that: worst low-scoring superbowl ever. This is just lame fuckin' football.
m, yes, we're all damned
Crooked Timber comments, IIRC. He hasn't overtly been paid.
Oh I thought you meant as we comment here.
it's even money George Bush will still be President come 2009.
Even money? I think the odds are considerable better than that, given that his term won't expire until then.
The fact that I'm commenting here means that I've given up all hope that the Peytonocalypse can be prevented. So not for the first time, I find myself thinking, "Screw you, Chicago Bears."
"Screw you, Chicago Bears"
Hey didja guys ever think about how it would be funny to riff on various poems with those words substituted for the final line of the poem?
Damnit Bears.
At least foreigners are still doing good beer commercials.
Watching the ads, with a certain time lapse, on AOL Sports (http://sports.aol.com/nfl/superbowlads) and must agree with 30. First ad actually to charm me, I think, in the whole batch.
Are "humility and patience" really the two most important qualities for a quarter-back to possess? I could see how they would not be detrimental certainly -- but are they by themselves enough?
Flomax! Flomax! Flomax! Relieves Male "urinary symptoms" in one week! Including going often, going at night, and "weak stream."*
*Side effects include runny nose and reduced semen.**
** That's what the man on the Ad said. No wonder the jihadists feel they can't lose.
Humility and patience are not part of the official stats. Perhaps they should be.
Indianapolis is supposed to be the largest city in the US not on a navigable waterway. It also has more war memorials per area than any city I've ever seen.
JL, don't be that guy. Pedantry hurts everyone.
Kurt Vonnegut and Kenneth Rexroth are both from Indianapolis. No other American city can say that.
Pedantry hurts everyone.
Dude, you actually wrote that in a comment at this website?
"Kurt Vonnegut and Kenneth Rexroth are both from Indianapolis."
There, I said it.
Must be tough on Ogged. Chicago seem about as good at football as Iran are at soccer.
Once I accepted the notion that Peyton Manning winning would be a huge victory for dorks around the world, things became much easier to take.
Key third down play. The big play of Grossman's career so far. Nobody, but nobody believes he will make this play.
I want to see another Flomax commerical. Imagine the potential for confusion with Flonase, which cures runny noses but has the side effects of weak stream and enhanced semen.
It's this website that taught me that pedantry hurts everyone.
Shit, football is the stupid sport of evil and sucky men.
Flomax could recruit Grossman as a spokesman. He's all about weak stream.
Sounds like the feminazis are starting to militate for equal-time sanitary-napkin commercials on Superbowl broadcasts.
Yeah, but it's pretty brassy to come down into our pedantry den and announce that you're now clean and sober. People like you can get themselves killed, you know.
This is not the best of all possible worlds that we were promised.
So is Robbie Gould Jewish? Glenn Gould wasn't.
64: I think that for most it really only hurts if they have their own pretensions of being a pedant.
That prayer went nowhere. Clearly the Muslims are worshipping a false god.
Why couldn't they have a arranged for Phil Simms to die in a giant bloody explosion? I mean, just to liven things up a little.
m, 'The City of Miami Welcomes The International Convention of Terrorists! Thank God You've Come!'
So Rex Grossman really did cost us the game. Not that the defense was spectacular, but when you're on the field the whole game, it doesn't help.
Yeah, the Sex Cannon really did suck. I wonder if he ever sets foot in Chicago again.
1) omg poor little chevy robot all depressed because he dropped the screw! poor robot!
2) You know, Chicago sucked. How did they win their conference?
3) I don't know anything about Peyton Manning, and I know quarterbacks yell, but his expression when he yelled wasn't so much 'get it together' as 'you know, if we don't get an A on this project, it's because you guys weren't doing your job because I was doing mine. i hate group work.'
his expression when he yelled wasn't so much 'get it together' as 'you know, if we don't get an A on this project, it's because you guys weren't doing your job because I was doing mine. i hate group work.'
You are clairvoyant, Cala.
How did they win their conference?
Their defense was really quite good for most of the year, and they won a lot of games because the defense actually scored or got the ball in a position for the offense to score easily. Of course, every game was in doubt because Sexy Rexy is insane and throws five interceptions a game--today, the Rex factor was too much overcome.
You know, Chicago sucked. How did they win their conference?
Because their conference sucks.
Really, the dude makes me want to give him a B- just so he can whimper in office hours that he put in effort and he's going to med school you know.
I heard they had a good defense but I think you're supposed to let them sit down sometimes and I think you do that by getting first downs now and then.
Cala, are you basing this all on how he looks, or do you know the story of him saying "I'm trying to be a good teammate but [my teammates sucked today]" after a big loss a couple of years ago?
Take away that one interception return and it was a close game down to the wire. But it wasn't.
Also:
his expression when he yelled wasn't so much 'get it together' as 'you know, if we don't get an A on this project, it's because you guys weren't doing your job because I was doing mine. i hate group work.'
Yeah, Marino was the same way, always blaming everyone else. Which made it so much more fun when we could group them together as guys who never won. Stinks.
I was going by the eyebrows. He just looks whiny. Maybe it's not his fault. Maybe he has a whiny face.
I know you all hate him for being a bad teammate, so maybe that's influencing it. But the body language is definitely a junior forced to do group work.
He actually said something like 'it's their fault'?
A perusal of Unfogged Manning-hatred has baa alluding to something like that.
Oh well. Let's think of it as Dungy winning. Go Steelers! No more concussions!
"I'm trying to be a good teammate here. Let's just say we had some protection problems"
Let's think of it as Dungy winning.
Have you looked at the second link in the post?
Yeah, I'm really please for Tony Dungy. Manning can go screw, but a it was time for Tony to get a ring. Also, can't you just see the steam coming out of Marino's ears?
No, I didn't, 'cause I was watching the game. Okay. Dungy's out.
Hmm. There's got to be something to salvage. I think I heard Rocky Boiman's name, and he went to Notre Dame, and now he has a SuperBowl ring. And does Vinatiereirirririri now have five rings?
Have you looked at the second link in the post?
Aw, fuck.
"Eli is a crying bitch, too"
That's cool. Was that from losing to Pittsburgh? BLITZ BLITZ BLITZ.
If you withhold support from football coaches who are anti-gay, you end up supporting only Canadian Football teams. I hear Ricky Williams is tearing it up there.
I watched the game at a dorm, and my word are there ever a lot of loud, obnoxious assholes at my school. All Colts fans, of course. Also, it's three degrees out.
s/b "losing to Pittsburgh when Roethlisberger had to make a tackle back when he had a working brain?"
Dungy already had a ring. This was superfluous.
Also, apparently Prince can control the weather.
If you withhold support from football coaches who are anti-gay, you don't have to watch football. Win-win.
Unless your partner does, or you go out to bars, or you work in an office with football fans.
But condolences to all the Chicago fans.
Prince can control the weather.
And does not age.
PK, before he writes his book, will become a star quarterback.
B, you're being egregiously whiny. Football season is now over for another seven months.
It's high time people realized that Prince is the second coming.
Football watching is a misleading endeavor. The guests have all left, and I have but a sink full of dishes and the film Down by Law to console me.
I just ordered a course of Flomax via an online pharmacy. See y'all in seven days, newly enstreamified and with reduced semen.
Grossman really was quite conscientiously lousy. In a way, it's admirable.
A Sons of Lee Marvin production, it seems.
114: So far, it doesn't make me hate Rexy any less.
Have I mentioned that I was briefly on Flomax after surgery? God, that stuff sucked.
It seems to me that Peyton Manning's performance was merely adequate, and not MPV-worthy. Rhodes won the game for them.
105: No one has to have a partner, go out to bars, or work in an office either.
The Christian God was rooting for the Colts. Dungy and Irsay said so during the super bowl trophy award ceremony. Afterall, how can a team with a wide receiver named Muhammdd win a Super Bowl? Muhsin is the reason why the Panthers lost the Super Bowl a few years back. I mean this is like shootin' fish in a barrel. Unless the Lord Our God and the Baby Jesus are on your side, don't expect to win.
God, that stuff sucked.
That's the opposite of what was advertised.
I, for example, do none of those things.
Instead, I walk up to campus in the bitter cold to sit in a room with a bunch of loud jerks and watch football.
But you did watch the game, têo. (You get a hat 'cause it's cold out.) Hard to avoid in a dorm, though.
My roommate decided the Colts should be called the Ponies.
Chicago's play-calling was really pretty intensely single-minded, too. "I know, lets.... hand it to Thomas Jones!"
127: There was a specific reason for that.
Was it, perhaps, those granny-like rainbow interceptions Rexy was throwing?
From 54: Indianapolis is supposed to be the largest city in the US not on a navigable waterway
Couldn't let this go -- Phoenix, AZ is at least twice the size of Indianapolis.
Football seems to have turned Teo into a libertarian. This is not a good thing.
Emerson didn't say that Indianopolis is the largest such city, just that it's supposed to be. Obviously, something's gone wrong.
Obviously, something's gone wrong.
It's all those fuckers who keep moving to Phoenix.
What's the definition of 'navigable waterway'? Phoenix has a river. River bed, anyway.
By whom? Those of us who believed it, at least.
Phoenix, AZ is at least twice the size of Indianapolis.
The greater metro area maybe, but the city itself is not.
138: Almost every city has a river (Houston and Johannesburg are the only exceptions I know of), but you can't travel by water on all of them. Only on navigable ones.
River Phoenix is long dead, Gonerill. Maybe you're thinking of Phoenix's well-known joaquin.
Houston is also quite a bit larger than Indianapolis, come to think of it.
Houston is also quite a bit larger than Indianapolis, come to think of it.
Dude, Houston is a port.
gswift, you are quite">http://www.census.gov/statab/ccdb/cit1020r.txt">quite wrong.
But at least he knows how to write html.
Here's a working link showing how wrong gswift is.
errg. why can't i link? Anyway, i've been trying to explain to many people lately how much bigger Phoenix is that they think.
As far as I could tell last time I was there, Phoenix now stretches pretty much all the way to Tucson.
Okay, maybe not quite twice as big. Still, it's huge and growing rapidly. Fuckers.
Well, technically it's only around 1.69 times bigger than Indianapolis.
Hey, I'm a highly trained professional blogger! I know html, I just um, am tired. Yeah.
Oh, and because this place needs nerding up.
I don't remember if this is new to this Superbowl, but when talking about players' stats, the network shows graphics with the player's head in a circle with their team emblem, and the player's head moves and bobs and blink and smiles: it's not a still shot. It looks like nothing so much as the encircled images common in real-time strategy games, where the little orc or mage or firebat will bob and weave when the gamer selects the unit.
All we need is the ability to click on the players to get them to say things: "Blue 17!" "I'm trying to be a good teammate!" "Look at the pretty rainbow!"
Hrm, pwned in two consecutive comments. To be with me.
Good lord, I know it's bigger, it was the "at least twice as big" I was disputing.
There, there, gswift. Being half the size of Phoenix is still plenty big enough, darling.
Okay, fine, wait five years and it'll be twice as big.
153, 154: OK not officially twice as big, but I'd bet you anything the current undocumented immigrant population in Phoenix would put it just about there.
Phoenix city is much bigger than Indianapolis city. As of July 2005, Phoenix city has about 1.46 million people, Indianapolis city a paltry 784 thousand.
In other words, twice as big -- officially.
I actually thought Phoenix was larger and Indianapoplis (city) smaller.
In other words, twice as big -- officially.
Sorry. Still only nearly.
I cannot believe a thread about football has devolved into a thread about demographics.
The area within the Indianapolis city limits is huge. So is the area within the Phoenix city limits, but it includes less of the metropolitan area.
Still only nearly.
OK, it's 1.87 times as big. Close enough to twice as big to win the argument, I'd say, seeing as we started off with the claim that Phoenix was smaller.
seeing as we started off with the claim that Phoenix was smaller.
Um, no we didn't.
The area within the Indianapolis city limits is huge. So is the area within the Phoenix city limits, but it includes less of the metropolitan area.
OK, compare by metro area, then. In that case, in 2000 Indianapolis MSA had an impressive 1,607,486. The Phoenix-Mesa MSA comes in at 3,251,876 people. Or "just over twice as big" as we say in technical language.
Yes, of course; even gswift acknowledged that in 140.
Yeah, hence my "The greater metro area maybe"
OK. So now we can all agree the Bears sucked.
Hey, at least these questions actually have determinate answers. Sorry about not reading 140 properly, btw.
Did the Bears suck twice as much as the Colts? Or only 1.705 times?
Lincoln, Nebraska isn't on a river.
My source was Kurt Vonnegut, in the part of his autobiography dealing with his childhood maybe 60 years ago. If a writer who doesn't such ever grows up in Phoenix, he can correct Vonnegut in his autobiography.
Or maybe Kenneth Rexroth.
Okay, there's another example. There aren't many, though.
Okay, Phoenix was definitely not bigger than Indianapolis 60 years ago. But times change.
I think, though, it's mostly because, even compared to Indianapolis, Phoenix is an abomination.
I must say I'm surprised that Indianapolis is that big. I've never
A) met anyone from there
B) met anyone with family from there
C) heard of any famous people from there, except Kurt Vonnegut
D) heard anyone mention that they knew anyone else from there
E) heard anyone express any desire to go there
F) known anyone to visit there
G) heard of any jobs or industries there, except Eli Lilly
H) heard of any scientists or academics at whatever college is presumably located there (um...Butler? Bradley? Drake?)
I) heard any anecdotes or trivia about it at all from anyone, either in real life or pop culture, except Kurt Vonnegut's mention that it contains a lot of German people.
If it wasn't for the two major sports teams I'd probably have assumed it was about the size of Columbia, South Carolina, and definitely smaller than Cincinnati or Cleveland. But what do I know.
I passed through Indianapolis once on the train, on the way from DC to CA.
The only reason I know anything about Indiana at all is that my sister and her family moved out to the Ft. Wayne area a couple years ago.
And I passed through it twice on the way from Pgh to St. Louis. But the same is also true of Zanesville, Ohio. And I was asleep so I didn't get to see its no doubt overwhelming and majestic skyline.
You took the train cross-country? That seems like it'd be interesting, if a bit inefficient.
Three times across the US, once across (most) of Canada (direct from Toronto to Vancouver). It's interesting and worth doing if you have the time, but very tiring, especially since I was in coach. I'm not likely to do it again, if ever, for quite a while.
The train's great. I went across and back when I was 18, and then a year or two ago, we took it with PK from Sacramento to Chicago. Good way to travel with kids; lots of people do it, and they can play with each other. And you meet some neat people. We talked to a guy who works for ILM and a rodeo cowboy and a couple with seven children who were happy to include PK in their games.
That seems like it'd be interesting, if a bit inefficient.
Christ what a bloodbath the rails are in this country. One of my big peeves. Imagine how much high speed rail we could lay with a fraction of Iraq costs. Say, 200 billion or so.
Gswift, the train system will be improved when private enterprise gets around to creating an efficient train system. There's no need for the government to get involved in something like that.
192: Some cities just have a lot of very boring people.
Lincoln, Nebraska has a lot of boring people.
However, Lincoln and Omaha have more interesting people than the rest of Nebraska.
The same is not true of Phoenix and the rest of Arizona.
My wife was born in Indianapolis, though she tries to conceal the fact.
She claims it was, inter alia, the original home of the John Birch society.
I claim (without bothering to check if I'm right) that the largest city in the world not on a navigable waterway is not Johannesburg, but Mexico City. (Mexico, DF.)
I believe we all agree that the Bears suck.
Does that cover today's topics adequately?
I lost two rubbers of bridge during the superbowl. "They" had all the damned cards, damn them.
I thought Tustin, CA, minutes from my childhood home, was the home of the Birchers.
I lost two rubbers of bridge during the superbowl.
I know how that is. During the world cup, I lost a diaphragm and some Plan B of cribbage.
Evidently that belief is complete bollocks.
"I'm trying to be a good teammate here. Let's just say we had some protection problems"
Fuck that, that one I blame squarely on the media. A) It was true and b) I don't blame the guy for cracking after the reporters in the room kept asking him the same question over and over and over again in a slightly different way each time. OTOH, they were trying to gin up controversy, and they succeeded admirably.
207: So none of these are navigable? I could see that.
they succeeded admirably
So you're saying that he cracks under pressure? Well, that was the other knock on him...
Aw, if I'd been here a few hours ago I could have jumped into the "Phoenix sucks" party.
I don't think lakes count as navigable waterways.
Now gswift is going to kick your ass, Matt.
Do gondolas count? Mexico City has Xochimilco Gardens, remnants of the Aztec waterways.
I'm happy to see someone else shares my Flomax obsession.
re: 198
"a couple with seven children"
I read that line and it immediately made me think of B.B. King.
Specifically the line from the Live at the Regal version of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw7pFYKl7j0
Mexico City has Xochimilco Gardens, remnants of the Aztec waterways.
That would be because Tenochtitlan was built on in an island in the middle of a lake, now paved over, which makes it a great earthquake amplifier.
And a navigible river waterway is just about anything, but certainly anything over 3 feet in depth.
m, navigible by what?
The legal definition of "navigable waterway" is very broad for regulation purposes. The waterway specifically does not have to be navigable, if that helps. On the other hand, for feight-hauling purposes the definition is much stricter and doesn't include kayaking streams.
211: Bonus, this comment compares Manning unfavorably to Michelle Kwan. When she lost the gold medal to Tara Lipinski in 1998, the media wished to create another Kerrigan-Harding catfight and peppered her with questions: was she angry? did she think the judging was unfair? And so forth, until one of the coaches in the back of the room piped up 'If she says 'yes', can we all go home?'
