What To Do Instead of Watching The Super Bowl Halftime Show
Introduction
The most useless, wasted time in America is the 30 minutes which constitute the Super Bowl halftime ‘extravaganza.’
Kid Rock wearing the American flag like a poncho . . . rapper M.I.A. giving the finger wearing, of course, Egyptian head dress and fishnet stockings. And who could forget the wardrobe malfunction?
This book offers some prescriptions for what Americans could do with this time.
Here’s the nib of it: the 30 minutes wasted by the 110 million Super Bowl fans exceeds 2,000 years of time. Two millennium. When you consider what Einstein or Franklin accomplished with their brief mortal dalliances, imagine the possibilities of reclaiming entire millennia.
Even Lincoln, with just 56 years to do his work managed to hold greatest nation on earth together, though if he witnessed modern halftime entertainment, he might wonder why he ever bothered.
David R. Evanson
Table of Contents
Get the teamwork back into sex
Write your senator or congresswoman/woman
Call your mother
You know she wants to hear from you, especially if you are her daughter. Discussion points:
- I did not lose my virginity at the prom.
- Being a parent now is different than back in your day.
- I always found Daddy so easy to get along with.
- What did you do when, you know, you didn’t want to do it?
- Why didn’t you warn me my once slender husband would turn into a beer swizzling lout who sits on the couch all Sunday afternoon watching football?
Write a letter
The post office could use the business, and who wouldn’t like to see a letter in the mailbox without a cellophane window? Below, a thought provoking letter that took less than 10 minutes to write. You could write three during halftime!
Get the teamwork back into sex
Sex can be a tricky business. Sometimes one partner likes long interludes, while the other is happy with a quick fix. Too long, too short, too short, too long.
What I’m thinking is let’s use the rigid time constraints of halftime to get some teamwork into the mix, as in OK folks, we’ve got 30 minutes to get out of the living room, get hot, and get back to the couch with the kids and other malingerers none the wiser. Possible game plans:
| Touchdown! 0-3 minutes – Put out more wings and Cherry Coke to keep the kids glued to the TV and head upstairs unnoticed. 3-6 minutes – Gulp a four finger wine pour while trying to maintain the appearance of leisurely sipping. 6-12 minutes – Kissing and disrobing 12-18 minutes – Engagement 18-24 minutes – Cuddling 24-26 minutes – Self-conscious cuddling 26 to 29 minutes – Smoothing of garments 29-30 minutes – Play rock-scissor-paper to decide who goes downstairs first |
| Time Out! 0-3 minutes – Finish beer or wine already in hand; execute silent side mouth burp 4th minute – Fall to mattress together. 5th minute – Realize how nice it is to lay down 6-45 minutes – Wake-up 10 minutes into the 3rd quarter |
| Personal foul! 0-1 minutes – Partner 1: “I’ll be right back” 0-2 minutes – Partner 2: “I think I’ll get some air” 3-8 minutes – Heated groping and pawing 8-9 minutes – Engagement . . . 9-30 minutes – Convincing each other your nine year old who walked in won’t be traumatized for life |
Write your senator or congressman/woman
Whatever your political stripe, everyone’s got an axe to grind.
Lawmakers take their incoming mail seriously. Not that they read each and every letter, but the volume of letters, and their topics tell them whats important to their constituents and what can get them re-elected or worse, thrown out of office.
Can you imagine how we could change the course of government by flooding lawmakers with 100 million letters?
Quick Guide For Writing The Government
| If you are a Democrat: You can write to Republican lawmakers telling them they are obstructionists who threaten progress. If you are a Republican: You can write to Democrat lawmakers and tell them they are radical lefits who will bring down the country. If you are a billionaire: Write a thank you note. If you are a green card holder: Request a get out of free jail card. If you are a woman: write to ask about your basic rights. If you are a driver of a jacked up pick-up truck: Write a letter consisting of one word: Trump! If you are black: Ask where the voting booths are going to be hidden this year. If you are transgender: Find out where you can pee. If you are Russian: Ask how you get to the front of the line for White House tours. If you are a gun owner: Write Nevah mah gune suh If you are pro life: Suggest other body parts ripe for federal regulation. If you are an immigrant: Write whatever you want, but for God’s sake don’t include your return address. |
Weed Out Your Closet
The self storage industry came into existence in the late 1960s, and today there are some 46,000 storage facilities scattered across the U.S., proof positive that most of us have too much crap.
So, if 100-plus million households are tuned into the Super Bowl, and each household skips the half time dreck and heads to the basement to clear stuff out for donation, millions of families would benefit. At 10 items per household, that’s a billion items, and enough for everyone in America to get some new stuff, some of it badly needed, and some of it still useless crap.
Quick Guide For Your Crap
| If you have: Old Barbie dolls Who wants it: Young, gay men exploring retro fashion memes If you have: Ginsu knives Who wants it: Bruce Lee fans If you have: Goalie masks Who wants it: Jason wannabees If you have: Oversize fuzzy dice Who wants it: Pimps If you have: Golf clubs Who wants it: People living under the illusion they will retire If you have: Halloween costumes Who wants it: Couples trying to spice up life in the bedroom If you have: Birdfeeders Who wants it: People who want to give their cat a challenge If you have: Toilet seat covers Who wants it: People stuck in the 60s If you have: Barbells Who wants it: People who need something new to collect dust If you have: Sleds Who wants it: Climate change deniers If you have: Power tools Who wants it: Lesbians If you have: Cheerleader outfits Who wants it: Pervy husbands If you have: Old computers Who wants it: Pervy husbands If you have: Vinyl records Who wants it: Luddites |
Read The Constitution
With Democrats and Republicans lobbing the word ‘unconstitutional’ at each other with regularity, why not look at the source document and see what all the fuss is about? It’s only 4,500 words, or the length of a college term paper, more important and definitely better written.
And here’s a little lulu you can use to stir up trouble during second half action. Specifically, Article II, Section 1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the Term of four Years.
Note the gender bias. Under a strict interpretation of the Constitution, the language of the original document seems to suggest a female president would be, well, unconstitutional. Proceed with an abundance of caution.
Visit Gofundme
The argument here is simple: you can help a cancer patient pay for care, send a little league team to a tournament, save a beloved family pet, or even help a 97 year old veteran get to the World Series . . . or you can fart into the couch cushion.
With a minimum donation of $5 — less than the cost of the freakin’ onion dip — there’s really no excuse. And if you must, you can watch the halftime drivel and help save humanity at the same time.
FYI, gofundme.com gets about 40 million visitors a month. If halftime revelers tuned out and signed in en masse, gofundme would get two and a half times its monthly traffic in 30 otherwise wasted minutes. Talk about a big score.
Knock on your neighbor’s door
One conversation, once a year. How bad could it be? Even the most challenged conversationalists have the first half action to rely on to keep the conversation going.
The point is this: We’re not communities if we don’t know each other. And getting to know each other is so easy, and in many cases, likely frightening too.
Think of the possibilities: a job lead, shared intelligence on what the kids are doing, shared intelligence on what the other neighbors are doing. And maybe, just maybe, directly or indirectly, Cupid is lurking behind your neighbor’s door, bow and arrow drawn. Or maybe a Silence of the Lambs-type guy is lurking behind the door too, so caution is merited.
Save some money
The national figures on preparedness for retirement are so abysmal that I’m not even going cite them. That said, I do spend some time thinking about how this is going to play out. Will the waving hands
of Wal-Mart greeters have IVs? Will baristas start pushing Sanka?
Watching obscenely overpaid athletes during the first half of the game — many of whom lose their money in boneheaded investments, see below — should serve as motivation for the rest of us.
Figuring out a financial game plan for the rest of your life is difficult in 30 minutes, though you will be none the worse for trying.
Otherwise you might simply focus on reducing your fees, which will reliably save you a small fortune. Here’s a surefire way to do this, or at the very least, get some attention from your advisor: “Brad, I filled out the ACAT forms with another advisor, but told him to hold off sending in hopes we can bring the fees down 25 basis points.”
ACAT stands for automated customer account transfers, and basically it means they’re fired, or for once, they have to do what you ask them to do.
Bad investments:
Actress Kim Basinger bought the town Braselton, Georgia for $20 million in 1988 and sold if for $1 million in 1993. Buy high, sell low.
In 2006, baseball legend Curt Shilling founded Green Monster Games with $50 million of his own money that struck out big time and went belly up in 2012. Swing and a miss.
Burt Reynolds made a string of money-losing investments but his $20 million investment in Po’ Folks restaurants went down the drain making Reynolds mighty po’ himself.
Bono lost $140 million on an investment in PalmPilots. Remember, bad tech investments could happen to U2.
Mark Twain saw the future in an automated typesetting machine called the Paige Compositor, but lost $150,000 — about $5 million in today’s dollars. He was bankrupt at 59.
Eat What You Kill
The gastronomie of the American Super Bowl has perhaps, from a purely anthropological point of view, elements of high interest. Gas inducing chili, sausage puffs, pizza, cream cheese-laden buffalo dip, potato skins, pulled pork, pizza, brownies and all manner of chips go sloshing though the intestines on a beer or soda brine. Mmmm.
Mutiny awaits the Super Bowl host who deviates from traditional Super Bowl fare. But my thinking is when refreshing the trough for the second half, skip the halftime swill, head to the kitchen and start whacking up vegetables. Hey, arm the kids with knives too. Let them experience how good it feels to eat what you kill.
If you want to know the truth, I make this suggestion for the chickens. About 312 million chickens fall in service to the 1.2 billion (the math checks out here. Two wings and two legs per chicken, for a total of four ‘wings’, times 312 million equals 1.2 billion.) wings consumed on Super Bowl Sunday and they unleash a stream of entrails even bigger than the mess created at Thanksgiving.
Quick hits:
Play Twister . . . change some passwords . . . sharpen kitchen knives (hey, why not?) . . . check the security settings on your device . . . stretch. . . Clip ear and nose hair . . . clean the inside of your car . . . Cuddle . . . write a to do list . . . order Valentines Day gifts on Amazon . . . . write halftime haiku (Big men are pounding/half time insults our minds/We all end up hurt) . . . clean the fridge, or simply turn your guests lose and let them do it for you.
