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By YankTank, Section Journals
"Be ready to be surprised." That was one of the tenets of Loesje, a Dutch organization for creative thinking and positive energy. And naturally there's no better way to launch into an NFL bit than call on the wisdom of modern-day hippies from the Netherlands. At least that's what my grandfather always said.
I can't remember the last time I was this fired up for a sporting event. As a baseball fan, I get the luxury of instant gratification--the most I ever have to wait for a game is a day or two. Now I have over a week to marinate in the dizzying anticipation of the undefeated juggernaut facing the aw shucks good ol' boys from NY. Which means almost 2 weeks of trying to prepare--or more aptly, 11 days of being ready to be surprised. And preparation, to me, unequivocally equates to acting like an OCD freak. I make bulleted lists when I'm nervous. My office looks like that mathematician in "A Beautiful Mind" and John Madden had some kind of scribbling showdown. My boss just came in and saw a scrap of paper with psychotic chicken-scratch that includes, but is not limited to: "Belichik=satan?" "longest bye ever" and "ppl not knowing foot injury=fake?" Here's a (slightly) more coherent version: The Top 10 Most Surprising Things of Super Bowl XLII. 1.) That the NY POST entertained for even a nano-second the possibility that Tom Brady was legitimately hurt. 2.) That Vegas bookies continue to establish double-digit point spreads in the playoffs. It's like they got so high off the 1st half of the season with all the New England lunacy (Eagles got what? 28?) that they forgot to downshift the gears and are consequently acting like me whenever someone makes the mistake of dealing me into a hand of Texas Hold `Em:
"Umm...ok, I'll go all in." 3.) That "Old School" hasn't been spliced and diced up to make some awesome montage. Between "You're my boy, blue!" and the entire locker room scene that culminates in "THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH TO LOSE! WE'VE JUST GOT TO KEEP OUR COMPOSURE!", it was like the movie was made to accommodate superimposing Eli and Coughlin et al and score the 2008 season with the sound bytes. 4.) That I haven't seen any "Joe is now a fan of...Lawrence Tynes" on my Facebook news feed. That's like my #1 favorite thing about Facebook, keeping abreast of my "network"'s interests, particularly what they've deemed are no longer interests, i.e. "Jane is no longer a fan of flavored coffee" or "John no longer has 'The Replacements' listed as a favorite movie." Just makes you wonder what exactly happened to spur these developments. But surprisingly, where has Tynes been throughout all this? I saw all of 2 seconds of post-game interviews with him. I have these visions of Coughlin relegating him to some underground kicker's boot camp, a la those young boy miners in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." 5.) What will forever surprise me--that people wear baseball hats with football logos on them. BECAUSE FOOTBALL PLAYERS DON'T WEAR BASEBALL HATS. I do not wear a football helmet with a Yankee logo to games! This doesn't bother me with hockey or basketball. I think this is because I'm a little threatened by football, as they start their season while baseball is still going on. To set a precedent, I'm retiring my Yankee hat temporarily in favor of wearing my GIANTS helmet out on February 3. Done. 6.) That the hierarchy of sports loyalties hasn't been called into question. How does it work? You'd think the Jets would root against the Giants, but I'm thinking this may be a case of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." And what role does the ubiquitous Red Sox-Yankees dichotomy play in all this? Would we rather see a team go 19-0 and make history? Or see an underdog topple the NFL's Evil Empire? The fact that Boston is now the Cobra Kai of sports is terrifying, and frankly I'm shocked that I haven't already begun tailspinning into an existential crisis. 7.) That the Sports Guy on ESPN.com's Page 2 hasn't written something likening the Manning-Brady match-up to One Tree Hill or Laguna Beach or some other pop culture mainstay that only he can get away with endorsing because he's irreverent and cool. He spins every great sports story into a Lifetime Movie of the Week, and at this point I'd like to be left to the illusion that his wife is just ghostwriting his pieces, and that a sportswriter can make analogies that don't involve Hillary Swank, reality television, or Al from Step by Step. 8.) That the IT people at my company haven't red flagged my computer for the amount of weird crap I've been reading about in this awkward amount of time devoid of actual sports action. My GOOGLE history today includes "how green bay bikini girls didn't get frost bite" "where to buy tiger cubs, how much" "loesje" "ox costume" "instant anagram generator" and "best spinach dip in midtown west nyc." 9.) That Belichik has managed to sidestep all mounting evidence that he is the anti-christ. It really reminds me very much of a scene in Seven when Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt are shaving together--a brief segue into one of the greatest finales in suspense movies ever: "If John Doe's head splits open and a U.F.O. flies out, I want you to have expected it." "I will." 10.) That the NEW YORK GIANTS are playing the NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS in the Super Bowl. Seriously. During the whole debate about whether Big Blue should play their starters against the Pats in the final game, the vast majority of analysts landed on the following sentiment: "Let's face it, the Giants aren't going to the Super Bowl. Go all out and play to make history." And there it is. In the words of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:" "The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is...[Super Bowl] 42." Go live the dream, G-Men. Good talk. I'll see you out there.
-Kris Pollina
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