Entertaining alternatives for Super Bowl Sunday.

In this post: No weather, Super Bowl alternatives.

You may be amused to learn that the HORRIBLE SUNDAY ICEPOCALYPSE forecast for Dallas by the lying sacks of poo at Weather.com didn’t materialize today after all. Sure, the temperature dropped, but the ice and sleet are nowhere near us and we really didn’t get any measurable rain, either. As usual, just a great big pile of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. (Thanks, Obama.)

Psychotic weather is headed for north Texas.

In this post: A weekend couch picnic.

So here’s what’s on the schedule today at Howdygram headquarters: 1) Sam is going to Costco; and 2) I can’t think of anything else, mostly because it’s 6 in the morning and who cares. Just in case you’re interested, though, on Sam’s shopping list today are Brownie Brittle, breakfast burritos, teeny chipotle chicken tacos, sushi, blueberry muffins, really big frozen cooked tail-off shrimp and fresh blackberries. We’re planning a weekend-long couch picnic that may or may not include the Super Bowl since we actually don’t give a crap who wins. (To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I even know who’s playing.)

Don’t buy into the hype, people. Just order a couple of pizzas.

In this post: A Velveeta crisis, gourmet Japanese snacks, frozen whatnots from Schwan’s.

Breaking news, snack fans. Apparently the Einsteins at Kraft Foods and their eager accomplices at Advertising Age magazine have engineered a Velveeta shortage just in time for Super Bowl Sunday, fueling the fear that football fans from coast to coast won’t have enough cheap shit to eat if they can’t serve Easy Stupid Queso Dip featuring a melted brick of Kraft’s rubber “cheez” and Rotel canned tomatoes. Because onion dip is so last century.

Why I hate the Super Bowl.

Although professional football is occasionally okay entertainment I’ve never really been a big fan of post-season games, and last night I was so annoyed I couldn’t even get through the preliminary festivities without switching to TCM to watch The Music Man.

I hate the Super Bowl because:  

• Despite the hype, commercials are NOT the best part of the show. This is why God invented mute buttons.
• The NFL wants you to believe this meaningless, over-priced sporting event deserves more respect than the Olympic games and trumps the discovery of penicillin.
• They refer to their squads of half-naked pole dancers as cheerleaders.
• There’s more tradition, flag-waving and ceremonial bullshit than a West Point graduation.
• I don’t care which team of addled egomaniacs wins.

Want more?

• Jennifer Hudson showed up for the pre-game festivities in stiletto heels and a skirt so tight she couldn’t step onto the platform to sing her typically tortured version of “America the Beautiful” ... with a backup chorus from Sandy Hook elementary school, no less. Holy mother of crap.
• Alicia Keys presented the worst rendition of the national anthem I’ve ever heard. It was so damn s-l-o-w I had to check my pulse to make sure I was still breathing. To me, her performance was reminiscent of closing time in a cocktail lounge when everybody’s hammered and face-down on the piano bar. 

Alicia is in good company, however, as I’m pleased to include two other miserable versions of the national anthem from past football events. The first is a now-extinct pop singer named Kat DeLuna who’s convinced that she’s nailing it, and the second is Christina Aguilera, who can’t find her pitch or remember the words.

This was the second morning in a row that I woke up with low blood sugar. VERY low. Yesterday it was 57, today 54. I’m not sure why this happens but it’s always enjoyable to stuff myself with snacks until I feel better. At the moment, however, I’m thinking I might go back to bed for a while because I’ll feel like crap if I don’t get a little more sleep. Thank you for reading this.

Vijay Singh finally admits using illegal deer antler spray.

Yo from Howdygram headquarters. I considered going to bed a couple of hours ago but decided to hang out at my desk for a while instead. Also because I’m not especially tired.

Breaking news from our Overpaid Liars in Sports department! PGA golfer Vijay Singh finally released a statement last week admitting that he used the dreaded deer antler spray, which contains a substance that’s banned under the PGA Tour Anti-Doping Policy. Singh pretended he didn’t know anything in the spray was illegal but the PGA isn’t buying it. According to an interview in Sports Illustrated, Singh paid $9,000 last November for the “spray, chips, beam ray and powder additive” and claims to use the spray “every couple of hours … every day,” and “sleeps with the beam ray on and has put chips on his ankles, waist and shoulders.” WTF?

Please drop me a note as soon as possible if you have any idea what the hell they’re talking about. Thank you.

In case you’re interested, our agenda today will include all of the following activities: 1) flossing; 2) an early lunch at Alfredo’s to avoid all those after-church Einsteins who clog up the parking lot; and 3) possibly watching the Super Bowl, although neither of us really cares who wins. It’s mostly an excuse to turn up the volume on our high-definition TV and eat crunchy things that come in bags.

Thank you for reading this.

Prizefighters, brownie procrastination and avoiding Maria Ouspenskaya.

Saturday was lazy and wonderful around here. Following a nice lunch at Denny’s I took two mega-naps, almost baked brownies and watched a middleweight fight on HBO, the FDR biopic Sunrise at Campobello with Greer Garson and Ralph Bellamy, and The Rains Came with Myrna Loy, Tyrone Power and Maria Ouspenskaya, who’s four feet tall and ugly enough as a maharajah’s wife to scare the crap out of just about ANYBODY. I actually slept through most of The Rains Came, but that’s okay because I watch it every time it’s on TCM and could recite most of the dialog by heart. This movie has some incredible special effects for 1939. Trust me, you’ll start looking for water wings.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, a thoroughly meaningless event for Sam and me since we have no vested interest whatsoever in who’s playing or who wins. Our day will be filled instead with other worthwhile activities, such as dim sum for lunch at Hong Kong Royal, baking the sugar-free brownies I put off yesterday and trying to figure out whatever happened to winter in Texas. The grass is turning green, our lawn service already started their spring weed treatments, outdoor bugs are emerging and we haven’t had daytime temperatures below 53° since the second week of December. As a matter of fact, temperatures in January and February (so far) have been more like March and April. If you think I’m making this up, take a look at our forecast.

As long as I’m rambling about weather you may be pleased to know that the drought is over for Dallas/Fort Worth. We received triple our normal rainfall in December and January, which helped our reservoirs and lakes rise more than five feet. (Lake Lavon actually rose TEN feet, which is excellent news if you live in Plano.) Most local municipalities will continue to enforce stage three water restrictions for the next few months, but that’s no big deal since it’s still winter and we’ve already had more than enough rain for our trees and lawns. Incidentally, I should mention that the rest of the state is still under an “exceptional drought” warning. This is crappy news for crops and cattle, and we Texans LOVE our crops and cattle although I have to admit that I wouldn’t recognize an actual crop if it jumped up and slapped me in the face.

I should probably go to bed now so I won’t oversleep and be late for dim sum. Thank you for reading this!

Welcome to Texas, land of the Einsteins.

Today is Groundhog’s Day, a holiday that’s been at the top of my Who Gives A Crap List for at least 25 years. The only time I thought Groundhog’s Day might be worth a second glance was when I lived in Chicago and a person actually wanted to know whether or not we’d get six more weeks of winter. Except by the time mid-March rolled around we couldn’t remember what the damn groundhog had predicted back on February 2 because we’d been too busy shoveling snow and scraping windshields. Which fully explains how and why Groundhog’s Day earned its spot on my list.

And then today I find out that Texas has a stupid official critter of its own — and I’m NOT referring to Rick Perry — named “Bee Cave Bob,” a weather-predicting armadillo from the town of Bee Cave near Austin because real Texans are just too damn cool to concern themselves with a glorified rat called Phil from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Members of the club in Bee Cave that own Bob the armadillo are named “Al Manac,” “Wayne Gauge” and “Hugh Midity.” (I kid you not.) Welcome to Einsteinland, y’all.

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last several weeks, February 5 is Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL’s annual post-season greedfest. I don’t care who’s playing in Super Bowl XLVI, I don’t care where they’re playing, I don’t care who forgets the lyrics at half-time and I don’t care who wins the game. All I want to know is, will Pizza Hut be too busy to drop off a thin crust Super Supreme (pictured below) and does anybody besides me still know how to read Roman numerals.

I’m starving. Thank you for reading this.

Learning to live with adversity.

I’m trying to overcome a moderately crappy day. There’s a big ice storm on the way overnight with snow tomorrow, I ran out of sugar-free chocolate pudding, and ever since I woke up this morning I’ve been trying to deal with a major system failure by my web host. Not only wasn’t the Howdygram functioning, all 24 of my clients’ websites were offline and I didn’t have any email service! For a while I wanted to blow my brains out, but there’s not much a girl can do about bad weather and the Internet. Unfortunately, I’m still out of chocolate pudding.

As I write this post Sam is driving to Houston for a three-day business trip. He calls every 20 minutes to tell me he’s okay or guess what he ate for lunch or he just passed a big field full of longhorns. This is almost as much fun as being in the car with him except my knees don’t get stiff. For your possible interest, here’s a map that shows Sam’s route on I-45. The pink map pins represent: A) our house in Mesquite; and B) Houston. Zoom in and you can see me waving. I’m the brunette in a red bathrobe just below the map pin at the top.

Before I forget, take a look at this photo from one of those lousy obstructed-view seats at Super Bowl XLV. As long as action on the field takes place between the 45-yard-line and the second hashmark you can see what’s going on. At other times you’re expected to squint at that barely-visible 42-inch TV hanging from a ceiling beam. Show of hands ... would YOU pay $1,200 for a seat like this?

I hope somebody strangles the NFL. Thank you for reading this.

The ice hump cometh.

With apologies to playwrite Eugene O’Neill, metro Dallas is expecting another round of nasty “winter mix” precipitation Wednesday morning and, with any luck, we’ll end up with another magnificent, photogenic ice hump in the middle of our patio. For those of you who neglected to respond to our exciting limited-time special offer on Saturday, we still have FREE PACKAGES OF AWESOME ICE HUMP NOTE CARDS available to the first two readers who respond to this post, either with a comment or by email. No normal person would ever pass up an opportunity like this. I’m just saying.

Remember those obstructed, unsafe and uncomfortable temporary Super Bowl seats that I posted about on January 28? Apparently all 1,200 seats were sold at the bargain price of $800 apiece ... except on game day (yesterday) the seats and scaffolding didn’t pass inspection and the Arlington Fire Department roped them off and wouldn’t allow fans to sit down. Cowboys Stadium managed to find alternative seats for slightly more than half, although if you traveled to the game with friends or relatives it was impossible to be seated together as group. The remaining displaced ticketholders wound up standing in the middle of a lobby area watching the game on video screens. Although the NFL promised to refund triple their ticket price, that’s not much consolation if you figure in the cost of airfare, hotels, meals, time off from work and the overwhelming level of corporate greed and negligence that created this situation in the first place. Maybe somebody should have offered a few free cheeseburgers. (Or ice hump note cards.)

And now it’s time for a quick shower and this week’s episode of “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover” on Bravo, which is basically a haircare version “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” for distressed beauty shops. Tabatha can be way meaner than Gordon Ramsay, but I forgive her because she’s Australian and I love her haircut.

Thank you so much for reading this. Don’t forget to floss.

The Super Bowl XLV halftime report.

Just in case you’re not watching the game, here’s a report of all the important Super Bowl activities as of halftime.

The score. Packers 21, Steelers 10.

The national anthem. Crappy, overly-modulated rendition sung by Christina Aguilera (see right), who wore so much lipstick she forgot the lyrics.

The commercials. Incomprehensible. The Doritos ad actually grossed me out.

Celebrities seen in the stands. John Travolta, Michael Douglas (looking extremely pruny) and Catherine Zeta-Jones, George and Barbara Bush, and a slightly skanky Cameron Diaz feeding popcorn to Alex Rodriguez.

The game just got started again, so it’s time to head back into the family room, where Sam and chicken chow mein are waiting for me. Thank you for reading this.

GO PACKERS!

The New Year Giveaway: three days to go.

Just a quick reminder to the procrastinators among you ... our New Year Giveaway ends on January 31, which means you’ve only got THREE MEASLY DAYS LEFT to register for some terrific prizes! These include our exclusive “Thank You for Reading This” note cards, mouse pads, refrigerator magnets and tee shirts. And you don’t have to do anything special to win except sign up here. Thank you and good luck.

In other news ... Jerry Jones, our local crown prince of greed and owner of the Dallas Cowboys and Cowboys Stadium, is rushing to add 15,000 temporary “obstructed view” nosebleed seats built on cheesy scaffolding in time for Super Bowl XLV on February 6.

According to a ticket broker in Plano, these temporary seats are a true bargain at $1,200 and actually come with a bonus ... they’re obstructed, unsafe AND uncomfortable! Ceiling pipes will be directly above your head and you won’t be able to see the players, the Jumbotron or the electronic scoreboard (see photos). If this doesn’t sound appealing, your other options include blowing $500 for the privilege of standing on a stairway landing way above the end zone or a $200 pass to the “Party Plaza,” which is outside on the northeast side of the stadium where you can watch the game on a big screen but there’s nowhere to sit and you’re not allowed inside to pee or buy a hotdog. Even if you beg.

For a total Super Bowl experience it just doesn’t get much better than this unless you’re incarcerated, legally blind or hospitalized. You’re much better off enjoying the game at home for free with a bunch of mozzarella sticks and a beer. Thank you.

Dallas gets ready for Super Bowl XLV.

Okay, so here’s what’s going on with the NFL just in case you’ve been living in a cave. The Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers won their conference championships yesterday and will meet in the Super Bowl on February 6 at Cowboys Stadium. This is a VERY BIG DEAL for the Dallas metro area. Restaurants are busy raising their prices, illegal parking lots are sprouting up all over town, and Rick’s Cabaret — a new topless strip club near the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport — is going ALL NUDE in time for the Super Bowl, because that’s apparently what 100,000 out-of-town visitors want most during their stay here. But you’ll have to bring your own liquor to Rick’s, because according to Dallas law you can’t have naked dancing women if your establishment sells alcohol. Yee-ha. What a world.

Also, for your possible amusement I thought I’d include an extremely boring time-lapse video that shows a gigantic “XLV” being erected at the Dallas Convention Center. No kidding, this might be the longest two minutes of your life.


If you’re interested in attending Super Bowl XLV, ticket options include $663,208 for a spot in the owner’s private box with nice sandwiches, $9,680 for a stadium seat along the 50-yard line or $2,376 in the last row of the upper deck behind two pillars and a Jumbotron. Rumor has it that Jerry Jones also plans to sell tickets to people who want to hang around outside and watch the game on a screen from the parking lot at $200 apiece, but I can’t imagine anything more depressing than that ... except maybe shlepping a six-pack to Rick’s to look at naked women.

Thank you for reading this.

So here's the deal.

Lately I’m reading that lots of people in the Dallas area are trying to score a windfall by renting out their homes for Super Bowl XLV, which is being held at Cowboys Stadium on February 6. Some are asking as much as $15,000 for a three-night stay. This sounds like a stupid plan, if you ask me, because who wants total strangers eating your leftovers late at night or examining what’s in your linen closet. But a windfall is always appealing, so I’m thinking our GARAGE would be an excellent alternative if you’re on a budget. If I can get Sam to sweep it out and move the cars to the street for a few days we can probably sleep a group of six in there on cots. Bathroom facilities will be provided free by the Conoco station on Northwest Drive, which is also home to Howard’s Christian Catfish and Taxes, our neighborhood’s most creative dining spot. They’ve got four picnic tables inside the gas station and Howard also does tax returns on a card table in the closet. The map below illustrates: A) our house; and B) the Conoco station.

The only downside, of course, is our proximity to Cowboys Stadium. It’s 35 miles from here, straight west on Interstate 30. Although savvy Super Bowl fans will probably find plenty of hotel space a lot closer to Cowboys Stadium than our garage, in case you’re interested (or desperate) our best rate is $109.95 per person per night. Bring your own towels and thank you for reading this.

The Super Bowl uncovered.

After watching yesterday’s Super Bowl game I’ve finally come to grips with this reality: PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL IS NOT A SPORT. It’s a televised business powered by greed ... and the players aren’t athletes, they’re overpaid showoffs and performers. Furthermore, the rules are stupid (“A flag is down! The quarterback sneered before the interception so he’s technically offsides and forfeits his mouthguard!”), the stadiums are overpriced, the cheerleaders are silicone-enhanced pole dancers with uniforms, and the sidelines are populated by a mob of sour-looking NFL employees who clutch clipboards, collect sweaty towels and squirt Gatorade. Seriously ... who ARE all those people?

Adding to my overall disappointment with Super Bowl XLIV was the geriatric half-time entertainment: the tired, wheezing, off-key Who of yesteryear, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend (see photo below).

Daltrey and Townshend enhanced their 40-year-old playlist with a lot of silly theatrics but couldn’t hide the fact that they just were a couple of desperate old rockers looking for a paycheck. I can’t imagine why anybody thought it would be a good idea to book these guys for the Super Bowl because more than half the audience probably never heard of them. With any luck, maybe next year they can resurrect Herman’s Hermits with motorized wheelchairs to sing a rousing chorus of “Mrs. Brown You’re Wearing Lovely Dentures.” Thank you for reading this.

The ghost of Super Bowl past.

As we creep up to Super Bowl XLIV (in case you can’t translate Roman numerals, that’s a “44”) I’m reminded of a Super Bowl past in 1985 when my hometown team, the Chicago Bears, were the greatest single season team in NFL history. For your viewing enjoyment, here’s the original rap video that also turned them into big-time media stars. Were these guys adorable, or what?


I remember the ticker-tape parade in downtown Chicago after the Bears won Super Bowl XX. I was actually THERE, in sub-zero weather, watching the team inch down LaSalle Street on the open roof of a double-decker bus, hundreds of thousands of screaming fans lining the sidewalks and a blizzard of confetti choking the sky from the windows of office buildings. It’s an indelible memory and the closest I ever came to frostbite even though I was wearing a full-length mink coat. (No social commentary, please. In those days I’d do damn near ANYTHING to keep warm.) Shalom.