ignoring the Super Bowl

Oh, Boy! The Stupor Bowl!

leeduigon(patty)February 9, 2025

40+ Deflated American Football Stock Photos, Pictures ...

Have I just become better at ignoring it, or is this year’s Stupor Bowl not devouring our culture like it usually does?

Ah! I didn’t get where I am today without knowing that the Addis Ababa Weevils are going to face the Jersey City Scavemgers in Stupor Bowl LXIVI (or whatever it is) at Hotashell Sports Area in Nevada somewhere.

The Weevils had an undefeated season. In fact, most of the teams in the National Football League would rather give up football than ever play the Weevils again.

The Scavengers were only 2-14 on the year, but it’s hard to say “no” to people who will blow up your car–with you in it–if they don’t get what they want.

And don’t forget the Halftime Show! This year’s version, featuring performers you never heard of, is expected to use up 1 hour and 50 minutes of your lives! And then there are the Stupor Bowl commercials. At $70 million for 30 seconds’ air time, push the product like your life depends on it! And who knows, maybe it does.

The broadcast, already in progress, is expected to last till Doomsday.

Stupor Bowl Sunday

leeduigon(patty)February 13, 2022

Glimpse of History: Remembering fallen heroes in Metuchen - nj.com

As we ignore the Stupor Bowl (owners who’d sell their mothers to the Chicoms for a dollar, and players who detest America), here are a few things we can think about instead.

In the drug store yesterday, I saw that the wall was covered with blown-up black-and-white photos of Main Street, Metuchen, my home town. The photos of the various stores and other businesses were very familiar. These were the buildings I grew up with. I was in most of them. But they are billed as “Old-Time Metuchen.” What does that make me? (I remember when Hammurabi was our mayor…)

On Park Avenue, heading into South Plainfield, all the older, regular houses have been torn down and replaced by stuff that looks like they took it from Brideshead Revisited.

Here’s one of them: 3889 Park Ave, Edison, NJ 08820 | realtor.com®

Crikey! Who lives in a place like that? Do they have a butler? And this is just one of many houses equally grand. Where did all the ordinary people go?

Reading Waverly, Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, I can’t help noting how differently stories were told 200 years ago. Today, reading a novel is like going to the theater, sitting down, the curtain rises, and you watch the play. Back then, it was more like you sit down in the theater and watch the carpenters build the sets, the decorators paint the sets, actors get hired and rehearsed… and if you’re still alive after all that, they finally get around to performing the play. Readers sure had a lot more patience in 1820 than they have today.

And I’ve just seen Violet Crepuscular rolling a large snowball across the yard next door, so I guess that’s my cue to move on.

Byron’s TV Listings, Feb. 12

leeduigon(patty)February 12, 2022

Garage Sale Finds: What was on TV May 1st through 7th, 1971

G’day! Byron the Quokka here–and why watch the Stupor Bowl, when Quokka University has combed the secret corners of the earth to bring you the very best in television entertainment? Like these:

7:42 P.M. Ch. 88 DANCE THE NEWS!–(Defies Analysis)

The day’s top news stories told in interpretive dance by the June Taylor Dancers! Host: Ayatollah Gabollah Shebang. Featuring some guy with a clear plastic bag over his head.

7:45 P.M. Ch. 13 INSECT TREATS–Haut Cuisine

Well, the United Nations says we should all eat bugs, To Save The :Planet; and no one’s better at catching and eating creepy-crawlies than former mental patient Ike Renfield. Moths, beetles, leaf-hoppers, flies, spiders–if they’re on his rosebushes today, Ike’s eating them! Voice-overs: Marcel Marceau.

8:00 P.M. Ch. 07 THE DISGUSTING RANCH–Western, Sci-Fi

Why do all the cattle raised on Mrs. Soggit’s (Molly Ringwald) land have three eyes, extra legs, horrible violent tempers, and smell funny? That meteorite that crashed into Mensa Mesa last year didn’t help! What otherworldly peril threatens the prairie? Professor Corbaccio: Burgess Meredith A Seductress from Ypsilanti: Bette Davis.

Ch. 29 WHO’S GOT THE GOUT?–Game Show

If you’ve ever had gout, you know how exquisitely painful it is when someone accidentally bumps into your ankle or drops an encyclopedia on your knee. But how well can you hide your pain? Join hosts Chiang Kai-shek and Kathy Lee Crosby as they perform clumsy card tricks for gout patients who keep trying to escape. Featuring George “The Animal” Steele and his orchestra.

8:30 P.M. Ch. 47 MOVIE–Medieval Romance

What happens when two knights (Alan Alda, Hulk Hogan) love the same woman–and they’re both idiots? “Lady Eleanor’s Breezy Boudoir” (Scottish-Tunisian, 1968) features Moe Howard in his only dramatic role as the tragic King Fritzenheimer and Ellen Mellen as ungainly Princess Haakenpantz. Music by Harvey’s Trained Crickets.

So there you go–who wants to watch the Stupor Bowl, anyway? TV shows like this increase your IQ! (It’s been proved by Science!)

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