Low Temp Football Revolution (What?)
High levels of both design awareness and nutritional value...
It can get a little depressing in the run up to Super Bowl Weekend for a guy like me. Don't get me wrong, I think it's generally a positive thing that America has found a substitute religion in professional sports. God knows we need one. To my way of thinking Lebron James is every bit as valid a candidate for sainthood as some members of the Catholic demi-pantheon. Consider St. Gertrude - who protects from unreasonable fear of rodents.
For someone who doesn't watch football however, the Lord still provides. How about this for a well timed act of God: an arctic weather system during Super Bowl Week - in Texas. The giddiness flowing from this confluence of two of my favorite things (lemming weather dread and recurrent media event syndrome) is almost overwhelming. The prospect of God himself shaving 2-3% off the NFL's annual $5 billion payday is almost piling on.
It's always a challenge to avoid participating in the the Irwin Allen aspect of weather preparedness on those exceedingly rare days when temperatures head below 25 in these parts of Texas. I am generally able to stay calm.
The sense of palpable doom was enhanced in major Lone Star population centers (excepting perhaps Travis county with its socialist public utility infrastructure) when "ERCOT authorized a series of 'rolling blackouts' [due to] the unusual amount of power demand associated with the weather system." Those who did the merest amount of information gathering beyond the TeeVee news (perhaps 43 people in the Houston metropolitan area) would learn that these (12-15 minute) brownouts were generally related to planned maintenance outages at several peaker plants around the Texas grid.
No matter. The disaster cum entertainment event now had the twin hooks of frozen roadways and momentary light switch failure. And all this 3 days before the Super Bowl. Which was being played in Dallas. The real storm (viz. the media one) was on. There's no act of God more powerful than a man made one. (See for example, the Trinity test site near Alamogordo, NM)
Local grocery outlets did little to encourage maintenance of cool heads. General managers of area chains were quick to make themselves available to utter pronouncements which only vaguely hinted at the coming disaster - and their corporate mission to see us all through these dangerous moments with adequate amounts of drinking water, packaged corn refinery formulations and Twizzlers™. Those few households who did not possess $51 dollars worth of Copper Tops™? (leftover from the previous winter's two day run of 29 degree days) were gently reminded of . . . IKE. Yikes.
Citizens with a minimum of two to three weeks of driving experience north of Amarillo were treated to freeways and work places which appeared downright dystopic and enjoyed a day or two of rare weekday calm while their fellows stayed home with eyes glued to the local news (which seemed to be running a suspicious number of grocery spots) and their corn starched fingers glued to quickly emptying yet bottomless bowls of microwaved vermont cheddar cheese guacamole dipped pork meatballs - foreshadowing Sunday's culinary madness.
If you're going to perish in a winter storm exacerbated by a power black out (on the eve of the Super Bowl!), you might as well have a well stocked larder and a full stomach.
Mediated crumbs of conventional wisdom such as these will soon consume us straight out of the Great Recession.
The actual perfect storm will consist of: a full thaw (about 40 minutes of above 32 degree readings) arriving on the Saturday before Super Sunday in time for a few hours in the local mall and (yet more) stocking up at the grocery section in the neighborhood Super Wal Mart. The great warming will be in full swing at kick-off time Sunday when Steel meets Cheese in the (covered, climate controlled, $3 billion) palace that the taxpayers of Dallas built for the unusually fatuous (even by billionaire standards) Jerral Jones.
I'm rooting (as always) for myself. If the Prozac takes hold in time for me to avoid suicide from the sheer sadness of all of this, I'm going to be warm and toasty in time to watch the real show on Sunday night - a commercial for the Chevy Volt which will inform America that General Motors will soon have the fucking Arabs vanquished.
Getting into the true spirit, I've just booked a flight to Alexandria. Hopefully the internet will be back on in time for me to watch the Packers (and Anderson Cooper) take sound beatings at the hands of a righteous enemy.
Praise Allah - and Roger Goodell.
Squire Godell in warmer times (not pictured: Mohammed)