Soup In A Bowl

The college football bowl season is upon us, and that means it's time to either laugh at or scratch our heads over why there are so many bowl games, and so many bowl games with ridiculous names. This year there are 34 bowl games played over three weeks from mid-December to early January. You may be somewhat familiar with, or at least have heard of, the more high profile, decades-long running games such as the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, or the Cotton Bowl.

In recent years there has been a proliferation of new bowl games, and each has to have a sponsor, and, of course, the sponsor wants the game named after them. Consequently, there are some absurdly named games, such as (and to quote Dave Barry, I swear I am not making this up!):

Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl

Meineke Car Care Bowl

Papajohns.com Bowl

That's right - not just Papa John's Bowl, but Papajohns.com Bowl. As if to say, "Hey, we're so prestigious and tony that we have a website!" Well guess what, Papa? I've got my own website! In fact, you're reading it right now. In false, I'm going to create my own bowl game: The Fantastic Foodmagorium Bowl. It will be played in Bangor, Maine each January 2. Kickoff at 8pm.

Really, the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl? When was the last time you ate pizza out of a bowl? If they're going to name a bowl game after a food product, at least let it be something you usually eat from a bowl. I can't wait until Battle Creek, Michigan hosts the Kellogg's Cold Cereal Eaten Out Of A Bowl. It will pit the seventh-place team from the Western Athletic Conference against the #11 team from the Big Ten. Exciting! (Really, there are eleven schools in the Big Ten Conference.)

Even the traditional games have added the corporate sponsor name to the official title. The Rose Bowl is officially The Rose Bowl presented by Citi. We have the FedEx Orange Bowl and the Nokia Sugar Bowl. The long-running Peach Bowl, played in Atlanta, became the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, but that company didn't want peaches crowding out their logo, so now the game is officially sanctioned the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

What do the football players themselves think about all this? Long ago it meant something to play in a big-name bowl game. It was like, "Hey, we played great this year and we get rewarded with an invite to the Peach Bowl." Now the reaction is more like, "Chick-fil-A Bowl? What's that? Is that any different from the EagleBank Bowl?" What if the right tackle is a vegetarian? Is he really going to want to play in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, or the Outback (Steakhouse) Bowl, or the Papajohns.com Meat Lovers Supreme Bowl?

Post Gametime Depression

I enjoy watching sports on TV, but I really can't stand the pre-game, post-game, and color commentary. It's always the same inane editorials about what the team has to do to win, why they didn't win, and obvious breakdown analysis of a play.

For example, here is a typical pre-game show parlance from a recent NFL broadcast:

Dick: Well, Boomer, what are the keys to the game for the Eagles?

Boomer: Well, Dick, I think that if the Eagles score more points than the Giants, then they have a pretty good shot at winning this game. They have to run the offense, play some defense, essentially play a football game by the rules, but play better than the Giants.

Dick: Well said, Boomer.

During the game, the color commentator never has anything insightful to say. He or she is usually complicating the obvious. Here's a clip from a past NBA game:

Jerry (the sportscaster, energetically): Iverson takes the feed from Wallace. He splits two defenders, does a 360 spin jump and hammers it home over Ewing!!

Hank (the color, deadpan): That's right, Jerry, what a great play. I think the fact that Iverson jumped higher than Ewing was the key driver in allowing him to score.

Alas! the game ends and we have to listen to the critique of the entire game. Coaches, too, are notorious for not being able to come up with anything substantial to say about the game. Coaches shouldn't carry all the blame for making vacuous comments, though. Reporters simply ask dumb questions. Another gem:

Reporter: Coach, why did your team lose tonight?

Coach Harris: Well, the other team scored more points than we did. I believe that was what gave them the opportunity to win.

Reporter: How will you prepare your team for the next game?

Coach Harris: Ninety percent of the game is mental. We just always have to keep in mind that if we score more points then our opponent, then we will have the best chance to win.

I can avoid watching the pre- and post-game shows, but I can't avoid listening to the color commentary without simply turning the TV off. My wife would love that.

All Hallow's Month

Ahh, 'tis November when I get that one week around Thanksgiving when I don't have to rake leaves or shovel snow. As I look at my wall calendar, I see that November is bookended by two celebrations for Christian Saints. All Saints Day on the 1st and St. Andrew's Day on the 30th. All Saints Day seems quirky. I searched on-line for "list of saint feast days" and found that every single day of the year has at least one Saint commemorated. You would think that a full year would catch them all, but no, we have All Saints Day just in case we missed some along the way.

Maybe that makes sense. It might be nice to have a few more "catch-all" holidays, because I would fall into all of them. I'd like to have an "All Employees Bonus Day." I hate when year-end bonus time comes around and the payroll department starts with the fat cats at the top.

"Here's ten million for you, ten million for you, and ten million for you. Oh, would you look at that! No more bonus money. Looks like the rest of you, the drones, will just have to hang your heads in shame and drive home slowly in your Hyundai's."

I'm reminded of a tense exchange during my university days. A classmate of mine, Edwin Samsonite, and I were working together on a project for Business Ethics 102: Manipulation and Greed. It was March 17, and out of the azure Eddie says to me sharply, "What's the deal with Saint Patrick's Day, anyway? I don't even know who Saint Patrick was. I'm neither Catholic nor Irish. And I don't look good in green. Why do I need to celebrate a day for him?"

"You don't have to celebrate anything today, you know," I replied.

"I know, but I have Scandinavian ancestry. How come we don't get a day for one of our saints? It's not like there's a 'Thor's Day'."

"Oh, really?" I asked. "Then what comes between Wednesday and Friday?"

"Thurs..." Eddie stopped dead in his speech, pondering.

"Think on that," I said.

Vermontpelier

My daily commute takes me down a residential street where is parked a hillbilly truck christened "The Vermonster." This truck has got it all: 18 inch lift, mismatched panel colors, perma-dirt sprayed all over, and, of course, a Confederate battle flag hanging in the rear window.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure if The Vermonster actually has a Vermont license plate. (I've never actually slowed down to look as I'm usually cooking at about 45 down a 25 zone because I don't want to miss the light at the intersection, otherwise I have to wait a full 87 seconds for the next green.) This truck very well could be registered in a state that was a hotbed of Southern pride. Still, though, it is very possible that the owner of this beast comes from a long line of red, white, and blue-blooded Green Mountaineers, possible a great-great-great-...-great grandson of, of, uh, well, you know some famous person from Vermont that just so happens to have loyalties and political ideals just a couple thousand miles too far north.

Vermont very well could have been a part of the good 'ol C. S. of A. During the Civil War a small group of Rebel cavalry invaded Vermont from Canada, robbed a bank, burned down a shed, peed on the ashes, kicked a dog, tripped over and knocked down a fence post, and stormed back to the safe havens of Quebec (or whatever is above the state's northern boundary, I'm too lazy to look it up.) This act of merciless, destructive warfare nearly brought the entire state of Vermont to its knees. The governor is reported to have said, "Please, we beg of you! We'll do whatever you want. We'll join your country. Whatever you please do don't hurt us but fix that fence post you busted while you're at it."

Believe it or don't, I have never actually been to Vermont, even though it's only a 90 minute drive away. My wife has, though. The one time she went, she came back with three or four large bags of plump mountain blueberries. I said, "How hospitable. You drive in, add to the air pollution, pay sales tax, and as a token of appreciation they give you gallons of berries." So, I thought, Hey, if I drive up to Vermont maybe I'll come away with four large barrels of kerosene, or a trunk full of maple syrup. More likely, though, I just get a flat tire.

I suppose if I'm ever up for a Monster Truck rally -- One Night Only! The Vermonster versus The Boston Cream Pie -- I'll make my way up there.

Better to Drop the Keys Than the Baby

Mrs. Cornucopia and I went to Another Brick in the Wal-Mart yesterday. We exchanged baby for keys, I giving her the baby (now six months old and very adorable, thank you very much), and she handing me the car keys. I struggled with the exchange, making sure that the baby was safely cradled in Mom's arms before I took firm grasp of the keys. The Misses made a comment about that, and I replied, "Better to drop the keys than the baby!"

That really got me thinking -- about how I had parked very close to the line on the driver's side, so that if someone parked too close on their passenger side, there could be denting issues. But that thought only lasted a second. What the baby incident really got me thinking about was do I ever "drop the baby", meaning do I ever ignore or set aside the kids' needs in order to placate my own?

Case in point - (shame alert) - A few weeks ago I was thoroughly engrossed in watching the telly broadcast of my favorite baseball team, the Double-A minor league New Britain Rock Cats. Being a rainy, chilly Saturday afternoon I had pulled out the "indoor roast marshmallows over stinky Sterno" kit and cooked up a few. The kit comes with some sharp jabby sticks that aid in the roasting and I had carelessly left them on the floor. At the time, the baby was just learning how to scoot around. So, of course, she scoots her way over to pick up one of these potential eye-gouging devices. My third favorite player, Maxwell Silver "Goat Cheese" Williamston, was up to bat. He hit a towering drive, Matterhorn-like: high but just not long enough. The center fielder snagged the ball on the run, slammed into the "Good & Plenty" sign, broke his bacteriophage, and had to be carried off the field. Well, since the hit was not a home run, there was no traditional "circling of the bases" ritual to watch, so I unwittingly turned my head to where the baby was lying about ready to poke her eye with my roasting stick. I quickly grabbed it out of her hand and saved the day. (In my haste I stepped barefoot onto the other roasting skewer and got a nice little gash.)

So there you have it. I nearly sacrificed my own child's welfare in order to satiate the need to root, root, root for the home team. It's really a good thing Goat Cheese didn't hit a home run, because my baby might have lost an eye, and because I was actually betting on the other team.

Rage Against The Mush

In my house, we love cold cereal. We love it for breakfast, we love it for snacks, we love to grind it into fine powder and dump it down the gas tanks of random cars. We love it for its sweet crunch. We tolerate it for its high high fructose corn syrup syrup content.

I recently counted the boxes of cereal in our house. Combined tally from the cupboard, the pantry, and the arsenal bunker, we have 18 boxes. Not all of these are full, mind you. Even though we love to eat cold cereal, we really don't like to finish off the box. Only three boxes are mostly full. The rest have just a few flakes, nuggets, combs, or puffs each left inside. You know how it is -- you pour that seemingly last bowl but really there's too much for one bowl but not enough for a second bowl so a "half-bowl" simply languishes in the box for weeks, months, even weeks. I suppose I could just make a "suicide" bowl of Special Lucky Cocoa Trix, but then I wouldn't have 18 boxes anymore.

My favorite is Christmas Crunch. I was introduced to Christmas Crunch on Columbus Day 1988. I don't know what it is about Red #40 and Green #7, but they sure taste good. Much better than that Agent Orange stuff they used to put in Very Scary Halloween Crunch. I'm also partial to Kroger brand fake Honey Smacks. (Not so much for the taste or the 78% sugar content, but for the fact that I can buy them on sale for only $1.79). (That is a good price, but mind you, it isn't easy to come by. That price is only available whenever there is a fifth Wednesday, only between the hours of 11 and 11:20 am, only if I have a coupon for $1 off, and it's limited to the first seven customers.) (As I type this I realize that maybe it's not worth it to take a vacation day just to save $1 on a box of cereal.) (I'll stop using parentheses now.)

So, there you have it. Eighteen boxes. And not a whiff of oatmeal or Cream of Wheat in the house. Because, as my mother used to say, "If it doesn't give you hyperglycemia, Ace, it doesn't belong in your face."