Good morning, fellow babies (with a nod to Howard Hesseman). Glad you’re here. You’ve made it to the weekend. Today is Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. Alexa tells me this is “National Play Outside Day.” Trust me, with the 30 below zero wind chills around here today, I won’t be celebrating that.
1301 Edward of Caernarfon (later Edward II) becomes the first English Prince of Wales.
1569 King Philip II forms the Inquisition in South America.
1936 Van Beuren Studios releases Felix the Cat, an animated film licensed from Otto Messmer.
1940 Walt Disney's second feature-length movie, Pinocchio, premieres in New York City.
1944 Bing Crosby records "Swinging on a Star" for Decca Records (Academy Award Best Original Song, from the movie Going My Way that same year).
1962 U.S. President John F. Kennedy begins a blockade of Cuba by banning all Cuban imports and exports.
1965 George Harrison's tonsils are removed (this was a big deal to Beatles fans at the time).
1974 Mel Brooks' Western spoof film Blazing Saddles is released.
1983 Shelly West releases the single "José Cuervo" (Billboard Song of the Year).
1995 Bluegrass and country musician Alison Krauss releases her compilation album Now that I've Found You (wonderful cover, by the way).
Birthdays Today include Sir Thomas Moore; John Deere; Charles Dickens; author Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie); Sinclair Lewis; swimmer Buster Crabbe; singer Sammy Johns ("Chevy Van"); keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon (Three Dog Night); Emo Phillips; and James Spader (The BlackList, Boston Legal).
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Let's cut to the chase right off: I couldn’t possibly care less about the Super Bowl.
My feeling on the subject is not specifically about the halftime show, though that enters into it. Who the bleep decided on what’s his name, anyway? (Who is it again? Bad Bunny? It’s even money he’ll be wearing a dress. Yeah, that’ll go over large with the average NFL fan.)
What it does come down to is the NFL over the last decade or so has gone out of its way to annoy the most loyal fans on the planet. I’m quite serious. I mean, I’m with Steve Kruiser on this.
Trust me, dear readers, I have plenty of bad things to say about Roger Goodell, but they're mostly about the game of football. My lament comes from a place of deep, lifelong fandom and is triggered by the fact that I don't believe that the NFL is very much about the game of football anymore.
Yeah. Similarly, and to that point, I wrote a piece about 22 years ago now about the NBA, and how it sold its soul to bling. Hmmmm… I’ll have to resurrect that come mid-March. It’s still valid today in mood, if not in specifics. (Alexa, make a note of that for me).
Anyway, I think Steve’s spot on, here. The Church of Goodell has done for football what David Stern did for the NBA. I haven’t watched an NBA game in years as a direct result of Stern, and I was for years a rabid Celtics fan, back in the days of Bird and Parish. Of course, that was when they were actually playing basketball. The NFL is quickly getting to that same status in my eyes, today.
How? Well, let’s leave aside the halftime extravaganza and its planned overt nods to everything the NFL fan base isn’t.
It’s questionable officiating, for one thing. All season long, we’ve seen games won and lost on pivotal plays where the officiating was so bad, even the radio and TV commentators called it out and demonstrated it with instant replays. No NFL reaction.
I suggest the two teams currently in the big dance wouldn’t be there absent those obvious mistakes bad calls. I think the NFL higher ups understand that, and there are going to be some owners kicking up a fuss during the off-season.
Frankly, I’ve long since begun to wonder how many of those were actual mistakes and how many were intentionally bad calls. This accusation is not focused on one team or another. It’s been happening on a broad scale... league-wide... every weekend, for the last 16 weeks. It’s to the point now where if they can’t get to the big dance honestly, I couldn’t possibly care less what the outcome of the “championship” game is.
A lot of guys, but women particularly, seem more interested in the ads that run during the game than the game itself. Understandable, and increasingly so every year. The women, particularly, also seem more interested in the Puppy Bowl than the game itself, and I can’t say I blame them much.
The pregame nonsense also has reached new heights of absurdity the last few years, and I’m way beyond uninterested in that, even if I’m inclined to watch the game itself, which this year I’m not.
You can forget about my going out to some feedbag, such as a Denny’s or an Applebee’s. Going to the local bars to watch the game is of even less interest to me. 27 flat screens in the place and I can’t see a blessed one of them with all the SRO crowd milling about. No, thanks. I tried that once. Never again.
Why am I paying large sums of money for food I could make at home, which would be both less expensive and better tasting and probably won't be as prone to wake me out of a sound sleep with a hurry-up call, warning of an impending explosion at 3 a.m.? Being forced to eat it while rubbing elbows (and everything else) with a bunch of beered-up zombies, who all seem to be wearing football jerseys that are either half the size, or four times the size of the ones that the people who actually make their living in them would be wearing, doesn’t strike me as a fun evening, either, particularly given the gastrointestinal price I’ll pay later.
By the way, why the hell are they not playing the game on a Saturday? This would allow people who work on Monday morning to drag themselves into their proverbial salt mines without the hangover, the indigestion and lack of sleep.
What will I be doing during the game? Well, anyone who knows me well will understand that I lean toward the practical. At 7 p.m. Eastern, I will be grocery shopping. We both know the Saturday, and for that matter most of the day on Sunday, before the game is usually a madhouse in every grocery store in the country. I can guarantee you that I’ll have much less in the way of crowds while what laughingly passes for the game is happening. Besides, it's interesting looking at the cashiers and stock people with their uniforms somewhat askew, as if they've just wandered through the chaos of the homecoming parade at the end of Animal House. I swear to you I happened to stop into a local grocery store last year at about halftime, and looking at the staff, all I could think of was: "This may seem an inopportune moment to ask, Dean Wormer, but do you think you could see your way clear to giving us just one more chance?"
I might record the Turning Point halftime show to see what Erika’s got cooked up, if I can remember how to program my gear for the purpose. But I’m sure it’ll be on YouTube or somewhere, if I don’t.
Yeah, I know I sound like Jeff Dunham's "Walter." But you chuckle at him, don't you? So....
Thought of the Day: “The most wasted of days is one without laughter.” — E. E. Cummings
I'll see you tomorrow. Take care.
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