The Sports Snooze

 Google Analytics tells me this site pulls routine traffic, which either means we're embedded in search engine results from longevity, bots love us, or there is some unspoken deep bond between us, Dear Theoretical Reader, and you keep coming back to read outdated takes about things no one still cares about.

Which makes me feel bad when the site lies fallow for extended peiods of time. Nothing has been said about the past Eagles season (it made me sad because it was a wasted opportunity due to one terrible and indefensible hire and retain, and I'm sorry someone egged your house, Mr. Pitullo, but I'm also certain the attack was less predictable and harder to defend than your offense), the current Sixers season (people who think Joel Embiid is fully back don't watch the games / care about defense, but the rest of the team is adorable and please never trade VJ Edgecombe because he's fun to watch and Giannis Is Not), the last Phillies season (postseason baseball is random and the Dodgers should just play intra-squad games until someone convinces them otherwise, because it's starting to feel Globetrottery). There, that ought to sate the bots for a while.

Having exhausted my hot takes for now, I wanted to pivot to the thing that's happening next Sunday that every last sports blogger, regardless of how often they post, should care about: the Superb Owl. (Your spelling my vary.) This year, I am going to spend the game... driving rideshare and, I guess, listening to it on the radio. Here's why.

1) I just don't hate the Patriots, or love the Seahawks, enough. Yes, Patrihate is eternal and Boston Fan can die in a tire fire (pronounced TIE-ARR-FIE-YAH, provided you can somehow do it for a 10-count), but Seattle is run by the scions of people who once ruined a job I liked a lot, and they also once employed Javedeon Clowney, who concussed Carson Wentz into the wasted career he was always going to have, But Still. I don't care very much. I don't think you should either, unless you are from there and can't help yourselves.

2) I am not financially well off, which means that I no longer get to watch sports. In the great number of ways in which we've ruined life, monetizing every single instance of Live Television means that the second that my laundry is out of consideration, I claw down my TV package, which means that I can't watch the game in my house. Even if I did have the scratch for this, I wouldn't, because watching live sports now means I am making the choice to Not Earn During The Game, and, well, no. This also means that while I appreciate the theoretical offer to come watch it at your place, Dear Theoretical Reader, no. I'll be working. Which the poor get to do for triple and quadruple shifts now, because America.

3) I live in a country that should not feel OK about putting our differences aside and sitting down for a communal event. Tens of millions of us voted, and will continue to vote, for a regime that murders innocents, then defames the still warm corpses, and then tells you what you just saw wasn't murder. They are also on record for raping children, while telling you it wasn't rape and they weren't children and what is reality, anyway, we have money and that's all that matters. Go Team. Or, well, not.

4) The event is about how money is all that matters (buy crypto! Use AI and harm humanity and the planet at the behest of oliogarchs! Gamble on anything! This is what it means to live a fully realized life!), and I'm too old and embittered to think that they are going to change their minds and give me some, because that's not how they roll. Also, if they did, I'd probably ruin it by telling them what I think at some point, and they don't like that, neither.

5) The game, as ingrained as it is in me, needs to die. It's concussions and corruption, random chance and stupidity, and it's oh so good and oh so amazing and no game is boring except the ones that don't feed into nerd gambling. And the only thing more tiresome than the game is people telling you why they don't like it and why you shouldn't either, especially if it's your laundry at stake.

So, mostly passing this year, which is to say, listening to it while working, watching the highlights later when it's free, and pretending to have seen the ads and halftime show so that I don't seem like a poor and bitter old man, while being, of course, that.

Enjoy!