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snurri ([personal profile] snurri) wrote2007-02-01 09:58 am
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Super Bowl Snuffle

So I called up my friend Kiljoong to ask him if he wanted to go see Volver, because it's Almodóvar and I like Penelope Cruz when she's acting in Spanish. (For some reason her voice grates on me something awful when she's speaking English. I realize that I am insane.) He doesn't pick up so I leave him a voice mail saying, "Blah blah blah Century Centre Thursday or Friday would work but if that's no good for you Sunday would be fine too." (As I'm typing this I'm realizing that tonight wouldn't have worked, actually, but it turns out not to be relevant.)

A couple of hours later he calls me up to tell me he's sick as a dog.

"Do you have finals?"

He laughs. In all the time I've known him, the only time Kiljoong ever gets sick is during finals week. Like clockwork. He put so much pressure on himself and works so hard that he invariably develops a debilitating cold. Since he's been in school for most of the time I've known him--he's working on his PhD now--it's become a regular cycle.

No, he tells me, he doesn't have finals. Furthermore, Thursday and Friday are no good for him, and am I SERIOUS ABOUT SUNDAY?!?!?

"What?"

"Sunday."

". . . oh." The Super Bowl.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

I start laughing, which is perhaps unwise. "I don't pay attention to football, you know that."

"Dave. It's the Bears. You live in Chicago."

Both good points. And of course I see the Bears stuff every day on the TV and the newspapers and the streets and OK everywhere. But it's part of a reality adjacent to my own.

Kiljoong tries to talk me into going to some Super Bowl party with him.

"I wasn't planning on watching it."

"Don't you watch the commercials?"

"Sometimes? I guess? If they put them online."

He sighs, and asks me if there's a showing before the game. I ask him what time the game starts. This sets off a whole new round of apoplexy. I can hear him shaking his head at my apathy.

"If there's a 12:00 show or something, I'll go. But you'll have to understand if I'm tense."

"Think of me as a calming influence, since I'm not worried about it."

"You're indifferent. It's not the same thing."

Suddenly it clicks. "Oh my god! That's why you've got a cold! You're so stressed about the game that you've made yourself sick!"

"Shut up."

"You're pathetic. God, what if it was the Cubs?!?"

"If it was the Cubs," he says patiently, "I wouldn't even be speaking to you."

[identity profile] ajjones.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I had the same outrage given to me yesterday. Of course it's worse for you big strong man types. You're SUPPOSED to grunt and cheer and focus your life around these things, see.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes. And, honestly, I'm sure that when it comes to baseball I make some of my friends roll their eyes. But I just can't care about football.

[identity profile] scottjanssens.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, it's baseball! Life begins on opening day. When do pitchers and catchers report?

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Not soon enough!

[identity profile] bibliogrrl.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 04:46 pm (UTC)(link)
hilarious.

I'm excited, but I am not letting myself get stressed out. I REFUSE TO GET STRESSED OUT.

It's just REALLY REALLY EXCITING IS ALL.

because, you know, WE WILL WIN.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 04:51 pm (UTC)(link)
OK! OK! (Just don't hurt me! :-P)

[identity profile] bibliogrrl.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 05:06 pm (UTC)(link)
why would I hurt you? I'm not a hardcore football fan (yet).

Now BASEBALL. Oh, how I love me the baseball.

Not that the Cubs'll ever win anything, but, you know.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)
I was just messing with you.

But yes. Even I would be thrilled if the Cubs won, and I'm a Twins guy all the way.

[identity profile] bibliogrrl.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 05:22 pm (UTC)(link)
like I said, you're allowed to be a Twins dude, different divisions and all.

Even though AL is fake baseball. hahahahahahahaha

But I won't even get started on THAT.

I really, REALLY wanna get up to the Twin Cities for a Saints game this year. Badbadbadbadbadbadbad.

[identity profile] shaolingrrl.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 04:56 pm (UTC)(link)
This is pretty damned funny.

I appreciate your apathy. For one, if you cared we would have to be enemies, since I am married to an Indianan.

Two, I don't care either.

Three, if you did care, the fact that I didn't would not negate #1, which is kind of annoying.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
It was a similar web of alliances which plunged Europe into the morass of World War I.

[identity profile] tacithydra.livejournal.com 2007-02-03 07:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, as long as neither one of you goes around assassinating archdukes or sportscasters...

[identity profile] colonelrowe.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Y'know, until I read this post I literally had no idea that the Super Bowl was Sunday.

Now, of course I did know that Sunday is the crucial third stage of the Tour de Langkawi, culminating in the beautiful but infamous climb up into the Cameron Highlands.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 06:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Mr. van Eeekhout said it first, but I, too, find your obsession endearing. (Even though I don't really get it.)

[identity profile] sallytuppence.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 06:27 pm (UTC)(link)
So, wait. The superbowl is this weekend?

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Apparently, yes. :-P

[identity profile] infanttyrone.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 07:23 pm (UTC)(link)
That's a good analogy, that all this is happening in a parallel city. It's like the IQ of everyone around me is dropping with the temperature, and by Sunday we'll be overrun with howling primates and freezing winds. I've managed to avoid the lion's share of the nonsense, but I'll be showing up to work the door at a bar right in the middle of the fourth quarter Sunday, so I'll be diving into the heart of it.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I used to tend bar on Super Bowl Sundays up at the steakhouse where I worked in St. Paul. They'd sell seats ahead of time, and the place would be packed with old folks and big-screen TVs. And no one would tip because they all had drink tickets, and no one tips for tickets.

Jerks.

[identity profile] infanttyrone.livejournal.com 2007-02-02 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
I don't get tipped out from that job, so I'm not worried about the money. And this is not an old person's bar, it's a hipster bar on Division, surrounded by sparkling new condos packed with sausage-necked yuppie shmucks and their orange-skinned shreiky girlfriends. Most of the time I'm indifferent to football. But now I'm beginning to actively hate it.

[identity profile] czakbar.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
If it was the Cubs, I wouldn't be speaking to you either.

Football, though, eh. I don't get the fascination with it.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-01 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
If it was the Cubs, I'd be pretty damn excited myself.

[identity profile] scarypudding.livejournal.com 2007-02-05 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
If it was the Cubs vs. the Colts, I'd shell out for pay-per-view.

(I'm not sure what they'd play, though. Kickball? Ultimate Frisbee?)

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-05 08:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Wii tennis. I hear it's all the rage.

[identity profile] kameron-hurley.livejournal.com 2007-02-02 02:11 am (UTC)(link)
Yea. Chicago is *weird* about all that, yo.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-02 04:43 am (UTC)(link)
They are Wound Up.

[identity profile] carnwrite.livejournal.com 2007-02-02 03:27 am (UTC)(link)
Can't say I particularly care either. Doubly-so, because I still haven't quite figured this American football thing out. Baseball, mostly, but not football.

I take it you were cartwheeling in the streets when the Sox won the other year? ;)

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2007-02-02 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
I'm a Twins fan, actually. So, the White Sox are my mortal enemies. EVIL!