I was able to watch the Super Bowl this weekend, but it didn't turn out how I'd hoped.
There are three reasons to watch the Super Bowl:
- To hang out with friends
- To watch a good football game, and
- To see really expensive advertisements.
Unfortunately, none of those three things worked out for me.
I missed out on the first one because most of our friends are 1.) in Seoul, and 2.) Korean. Because the game aired at 8:30 on Monday morning local time, they were all at work. And though it would have been nice to watch it at home, our cable package doesn't offer a channel that would have shown it.
Instead, I went to the USO on-post to watch it. It wasn't bad, and the other guys there were pretty cool, but it just wasn't the same as watching it with people you happen to know and like.
The football part was also a letdown. I was really hoping that Peyton Manning -- a fellow old guy -- would be able to pull it off. Unfortunately, it was not to be.
But at least there are the commercials, right?
No, we didn't even get to see those. AFN (Armed Forces Network) cut out all the normal commercials and replaced them with players from both teams offering affectations to servicemembers everywhere. It was nice up until mid-way through the first quarter, and then became tedious. By halftime, when AFN had to resort to "reruns," it got irritating.
Gratitude is nice and all, but these clips offered only platitudes. Comments like, "You guys are the reason why we're able to play this game," irritate me. They aggrandize the military through shallow thinking, and -- let's face it -- are in reality just recycled praise they've heard from elsewhere.
In small doses it's tolerable, but I didn't have the stomach for another two hours of it. Rather than endure a half-time show that didn't interest me, I got some lunch, confirmed there wouldn't be a comeback, and then went home to face the cold emptiness of post-Super Bowl ennui.
*sigh*
Well, there's always next year.
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