THE SUPER BOWL PARTY - a cranky re-run

THE SUPER BOWL PARTY

This cranky re-run is from February 2012

For the fifth straight year, I will be watching the Super Bowl at home.  No Super Bowl party for the Cranky Old Man.  I will miss watching with my 13 year old son Spencer as he has been whisked off to another state by his BPD mom (thanks a lot NJ Custody Courts and its dumb ass judge who has absolute ZERO understanding of the relationship between a teenage boy and his dad.)  I will NOT miss the Super Bowl Party.

The Super Bowl Party is not about the Super Bowl.  It is not about football.  It is about showing off food, and 58 inch TV sets.  The Super Bowl party is to football fans, what the New Years Eve party is to alcoholics; strictly for amateurs. 

Part of the problem with the Super Bowl party is women. Super Bowl parties all have women.  Don’t take offence ladies, but when you all talk about breast feeding, child birth, monthly visits and shoes, I step the frick out of the conversation.  At the Super Bowl party I really don’t want to hear that the Patriots will win because Tom Brady is “Like way more awesomer than Eli Maningham.” 

Every Super Bowl party should have a large poster by the TV stating:

1.    The names of the teams and their uniform colors

2.    Where the game is being played

3.    The temperature at game time

4.    Who is lip-synching at half time

These are the questions asked by every woman who enters the Super Bowl party; there is no need to answer them 18 times.

This one fries my patoot.  A controversial play ends in a loss of downs and change of possession, when the commercial comes on and the men strike up a discussion about what just transpired on the field, they get shouted down by the women, “SHHHH, it’s the new “Bank One” commercial!”  I can’t talk football because it interrupts the fucking commercials?  WTF!

Half time should be for recapping the first half, arguing over play selection, going to the bathroom, eating chili, drinking beer and marching bands.  Not at the Super Bowl party.  Half time is for quieting down, dropping everything, and watching this year’s superstar lip-synch her latest hit song to the backdrop of 287 dancers, 5000 fans fucking up the field, and $500,000 worth of fireworks. 

W O-fucking W!!

CAN WE PLEASE GET BACK TO FOOTBALL?

The second half is played with critiques of the half-time show and endless discussions of 47 different commercials competing with the play by play calling of the game on TV.  The game is always secondary at the Super Bowl party. 

The Super Bowl party sucks!

Can anyone guess why the Cranky Old Man has not been invited to a Super Bowl party in the last five years?  

It does not matter. I am not seeking a party invite, if invited I will not accept, and if my wife accepts, I will not attend.

STUPID HEADLINES 012515

STUPID HEADLINES 012515

Who knew?

It is time again for

STUPID HEADLINE SUNDAY

This week’s stupid headlines and my stupider sophomoric and sometimes offensive comments.

One headline may be completely made up, guess the fake and win a mention and a Whoop-tee-doo. 'None of the above' may be the correct answer.

So as not to influence guessing, comments will not be published until Monday. 

__________________________

California girl’s high school basketball coach suspended after 161-2 victory – That is one tough school for suspending him, they only gave up two points and that was a lucky basket!

Rooster in the road causes three car pile-up – Three more people wondering, “WHY? Why?”

Papa John's Pizza stands by employee who shot armed robber in self defense – Employee not fired for firing before being fired at.  Better employees, Better employer, Papa John’s

Pair tried to smuggle heroin-laced Bible into jail – Is there a law against mainlining Deuteronomy?

Former British Surgeon Says Americans Should Eat More Haggis To Fight Obesity – It should work.  It’s kind of like jamming your finger down your throat.

Paris Hilton is considering hiring a nanny for her new puppy – Wanted, reliable person to work for pampered spoiled creature.  Must be willing to work on call and will be expected to clean up vomit and other messes; may have to take care of a small dog as well.

Black ice causes havoc on northeast highways – When I heard this on TV I was outraged.  Then I looked up and saw…oh, black ICE, not black Guys.

Five-year-old boy gets a bill for missing school friend's birthday party – If he pays up, I hope he gets soda, a slice of pizza, cake, and a goody bag!

Wife Stunned After Husband Bulldozes Their Home While She's Away – Obviously the start of a complete remodel, I’m sure he will get around to redoing it on weekends.

California man close to running 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days – San Francisco runner gasped in an interview after the sixth race, “Please God, tell me there aren’t eight continents!"

_______________________________

Last week’s fake headline was:

Sink falls from sky and lands in farmhouse…no one hurt – Farmer wakes up yelling, “Alright, alright I’ll swim!”

Must have been too easy because here are the winners:

fishducky

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!! I think it's Sink falls from sky and lands in farmhouse…no one hurt

TexWisGirl

the pale forehead is tempting, but i'll go with sink or swim, alex. :)

Hilary

And you say you can't keep up with punning! That sink or swim headline and subsequent remark has to be it.
Hilary is still the queen of word play!

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip,

“Alright, alright I’ll swim!”
Is a great follow up to a fake headline

Val

I think I'll take the Sky Sink. It's raining plumbing fixtures? Something for nothing? That's too good to be true.

I talked myself out of Castro's John Henry, because it was probably a form letter with a name stamp, and the vicious llampaca because I think they're notoriously cranky like camels. Perhaps I'm over-analyzing...
You think? Come on Val, contestants on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” take less time to answer!

Stephen Hayes

You're making this harder; I've usually read half the headlines and know they're real, and now you won't let me cheat. For me this is a very humbling feature, like that ten year old kid on Jeopardy a few weeks ago who beat me in the Art category. Anyway, I pick sink falls from sky, even though if it had it probably would have landed on ME!

I can’t believe anyone knows more about art than Stephen.

Sandee

Sink falls from sky and lands in farmhouse…no one hurt is my pick.
Have a fabulous day Cranky. Hello to Mrs. Cranky. ☺

J

Ummm, s'cuse me, but you forgot to add this disclaimer to #8: "MOST llama-alpaca hybrids are peaceful, law abiding creatures."
And this week, put me down for whatever Sandee picks.
Thank you!

Come on J, you can’t just use Sandee’s answer, you are disqualified.  However, you do win a WHOOP-TEE-DOO for using a comment that ties into Saturday’s Cranky Opinion post and making me laugh to the edge of having an accident.

Stop by and congratulate all the winners, and come back next week for more:

STUPID HEADLINE SUNDAY

For those fans of the wonderful "Lo" I received an email, she is fine, just too busy right now to post.

Liberals and Conservatives…Step on it; Slow Down!

Liberals and Conservatives…Step on it; Slow Down!

A cranky opinion for

CRANKY OPINION SATURDAY

The following opinion is that of a cranky old man with but a little knowledge on the topic opined.  Opposing opinions are welcome.  They are welcome but they will probably be ignored.  As always, please, no name calling.  That means you, you big stupid-head.

Politics, like England in the song, “Swings like a pendulum do.” On the far edge of each swing of the pendulum we have conservatives and liberals.

Liberals want to improve everything; eliminate hunger, end disease, save the environment, and make all things fair.

Conservatives want to think about stuff; let’s not move too soon and ruin what we have.  Sometimes a good idea has consequences.  Sometimes easy obvious solutions are not such good ideas.

During the early days of computing at my job in a former life, we had the equivalent of conservatives and liberals.

The computer people were the liberals.  They could do fantastic things.  They could develop systems to improve work flow and reduce costs beyond anything previously thought possible.  The liberal computer people constantly delivered and life in my user world of processing and operations improved beyond imagination.

The liberal computer people ruled.  Management, the conservatives, gave them full rein and everyone profited.  The workers reveled in improved conditions; management loved the cost control and process improvement.  There were still projects for the liberals to improve.

There came a time where the workers (that would include a young Cranky) would think of a great idea and ask the liberal computer people if they could make it happen.  The computer people could make anything happen.   If you asked, they would deliver.

At some point we reached a stage where the little guy users asked for things that delivered little in the way of cost control or improved service.  The computer people would deliver whatever they were asked to deliver and development costs were never considered.

Simple requests from the little guy users that had little or minimal value were implemented at sometimes ridiculous development costs.

The result was conservative management started to see expenses go through the roof with little apparent value.

Management looked at these costs and said,

“Damn, this is ridiculous!”

Management stepped in, and rules and regulations were developed which analyzed every request and a cost analysis protocol was implemented.  Very expensive development processes that could not be supported by significantly increased value were eliminated and balance was restored to our world of processing.

As computer sophistication and capabilities improved, the protocol analysis sometimes became silly.

I once called a programmer and asked if it would be possible to create a process that would allow me to research various statistics with different criteria and even multiple criteria.  In past years this request would have taken months to implement, if it was even possible, and would have used a great deal of resources.

The programmer told me that my request was now an easy one.  He could implement it in a matter of hours and I could be testing it the next day.  It was immediately apparent that the cost of this request was almost nil.  The benefits would be a great deal of cost savings and would provide a service that otherwise was not only valuable but believed by many to be impossible.

“That’s great,” I said. “Do it!”

“Can’t.”

“Why not”

“You need to submit a written request to your management and sell them on the benefits.  If approved, they send a request to my management.  My management will ask me to do a cost analysis.  They will take my report and discuss it at their next development request meeting which will be in a month; if approved it will need to be funded by your management and assigned by my management.  I will get the assignment and before I can start I must submit a development plan complete with milestones and benchmarks.  That will take a week and another week to be approved.  When all that is done, you can have your application for testing the next day.  After testing, implementation should only take another month or two.”

“But testing will take only minutes.  If it works it works, if it doesn’t it is all back end, it cannot effect any critical processes.”

“I’m sure you could explain that to your management, might only take a month or so.”

The programmer was a consultant.  He was a very bright dude from Pakistan.  He was loath to skip protocol, risk his job and have to go back to Pakistan.

“Damn, this is ridiculous!”

A year and a half later my request was implemented.  Conservative Management was lauded for the increased efficiency; the Liberal Programmers were praised for their ability.

And so the pendulum swings in all things political, from the “We can do anything and all things new are good” liberals, to the “Now wait a second, let’s think about this, stuff is already pretty good” conservatives.  Both extremes of the pendulum are ridiculous.  Common sense is in the middle, but common sense is not arrived at easily.  

Eventually we get there, but common sense does take time.

The preceding was the opinion of a cranky old man and not necessarily that of management…Mrs. Cranky.