Weekend wrap-up

Greetings, sports fans. I am a sad one tonight.

I've never been a hardcore sports junkie. I mean I played a few in high school. I've spent plenty of time on many couches watching games on TV. For a couple of college basketball seasons back in Milwaukee three co-workers and I shared some three-rows-up-from-the-court season tickets to Marquette University men's basketball games.

But I've never been one to get emotional about sports. Until tonight. The Green Bay Packers lost to the New York Giants in the NFC championship game. It was very likely Brett Favre's last playoff game, and thus his last shot at another Super Bowl. I was fortunate when I lived in Wisconsin to have gone to Lambeau Field and seen Favre play "in person." Our seats were on the 50-yard line, about 10 rows up from the field. Very cool experience to match the freezing cold outside. Anyway, I'm hardly the expert, but with all due respect to Tom Brady and the Manning brothers, Favre strikes me as the last incarnation of that old school warrior type of quarterback. I hope he gives it one more year. I hope the Packers find a consistent running back. I also hope the Packers develop a better defensive scheme than they had tonight against really fast, really tall wide receivers.

Moving right along, I saw Super Bad last night, and I think it's the funniest high school/teen/angst movie since The Breakfast Club. Super Bad cracked me up on a number of levels. First, instead of trying too hard with a complex plot it focused on the heart of the matter for teenage boys: The film's heroes desperately wanted sex before they graduated. And that was pretty much the gist of the film, that and finding alcohol to bring to a graduation party at which they hoped their sex dreams would be realized. Second, these kids cussed a lot. My first reaction to that was to frown. But then I remembered, once we got out of earshot of our parents, my guys and I used to say all sorts of foul things in high school. We weren't very good at swearing though. There's something weak about a cussing virgin. The words lack a certain punch and sincerity and skill.

Finally, it's Monday morning now. Federal employees everywhere, and even a few private industry worker bees have a day off of work in observance of the late Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Most will not do anything to mark the day, not even engage in a minute of quiet reflection. Most won't think twice about whether or not the movement he inspired has helped make the U.S. a better, fairer place. Hell, I didn't do anything to mark this day but be one of the black reporters once again called on to write a story about King's impact on modern society. Maybe that would mean something if I'd volunteered to write the article. But I didn't. Never do, come this time of year. So I won't be hypocritical with my snarkiness. As my pops used to say, I have one accusatory finger pointed out and three more plus a thumb pointing back at me. Some folks will even try to politicize King today and question whether he'd align with Republicans or Democrats if he was alive today. King wasn't even close to being a deity. He had problems. He was human. But he had a brass set and proved time and again that he was willing to put his life on the line for a concept so simple as us all just getting along. So when I think about how seriously we don't take his legacy, I think about all those folks who darken the doorway of their neighborhood church once a year - at Christmas, and then go back to the same ole, same ole.

Till next year this time, if you don't already do this. strike up a conversation from time to time with the stranger sitting next to you on the train to work or across from you at the coffee shop, or whose dog is romping with yours in the park. And make it challenging. Pick a stranger who bears no outward resemblance to you. You might be surprised to learn what you have in common. A parting shot: While walking our dog Sunday afternoon, Mrs. B and I stoppped for food-to-go and coffee-while-we-waited at a little cafe in our neighborhood. While she was inside getting the coffee, Cheko the Australian Shepherd/herder and I waited on the sidewalk. A scruffy looking middle-aged white guy sporting an intense look and a ponytail approached from across the street. What can I tell you? I tensed up. Strangers spook me sometimes. But then we made eye contact. In a split second I had to decide whether to look away or hold his gaze. I held. He smiled tentatively. I reciprocated. He stopped and asked to pet my dog. I allowed it. He correctly guessed my dog's breeds and said he had a similar mix back home that he missed terribly. Five minutes later I was shaking hands with Larry from Seattle, who is on vacation in South Florida till Tuesday, making suggestions on where he should dine and drink, introducing him to Mrs. B as she returned with our coffee, and wishing him luck on the decision he'll have to make soon on whether to stay in Seattle or move to South Florida now that his youngest kid is grown and moving out of the house.

Is it a realization of King's dream(s)? No. It's not that dramatic. But considering the state of the Union, it's a good start.

Quick Hits

• Rusty Pipe Up Yours Award - I haven't given out one of these for a while, but this one goes out to Comcast Cable. Thanks to these rocket scientists I am just now getting back my Internet service, which has basically been out since Thursday afternoon. Dueling technicians came out to my house in the interim, each giving different assessments and each blaming the other for not fixing the problem. They should have been playing dueling banjos. It would have been more entertaining.
• I just took the subconscious racial preferences test as part of Harvard's Project Implicit. The test said that subconsciously I believe white people are better than black people. I say the test is on crack. I love myself, but as part of my personal equal opportunity policy I hate everyone else. Just kidding...or am I? Ha ha ha ha ha! Still wondering, aren't you?
• An indication that you might not be able to afford your luxury car? The pizza delivery sign on its roof. I wish that was a Jeff Foxworthy-esque joke, but the missus and I were walking our dog here in the land of fronters and headlights approached, moving slowly. As they got closer we saw that the interior dome light was also on. As the vehicle got a little closer we saw a Pizza Hut sign strapped onto the roof. And a little closer we realized the vehicle was a new(er) Lexus SUV. And no, it wasn't a teenager driving his dad's car. This dude looked to be 40ish himself. If you have to deliver fastfood to pay for your luxury car, trade that thing down for a Honda. It'll last just as long and cost 75% less.
• I am sooooo fashionable - During a little shopping excursion earlier Mrs. B wanted to stop in J. Crew (I've always hated that name. It tries too hard) for a couple of things. While she grabbed 'em, I browsed the guy stuff and to my surprise on their necktie table was a new selection of square bottomed knit ties, like those really popular in the late '80s. I never got rid of mine from middle and high school. Seriously, from critical mom, to critical buddies, to girlfriend to critical girlfriend, and finally my wife, I have refused over the years to get rid of my knits. Now they're back. I knew it. I'm cooler than the other side of the pillow.
• In case you were wondering, ever since I called out my cornhole neighbor from down the block who let his rat terrier poop on the swale in front of my house and didn't pick it up, there has not been one dropping on my grass. Coincidence? I think not.

Two Minute Warning

So today's the big day. I can't tell you how happy I am that Super Bowl ZZZ is finally here.

Some of you are gonna give me crap, 'cause you think I'm being facetious or melodramatic. But I swear it has been an exhausting week. I've had to do more parties than I did New Year's weekend.

But it's over. Now I can lay on the couch on the porch, sip suds, enjoy a good stogie, watch the half time commercials, and just do little else.

First though, my final thoughts:

• Mark Wahlberg is a classy guy. In the few minutes I got to chat with him Friday night, he was all about his charitable foundation that raises scholarship money for needy youth to attend college. Whereas other celebs I chatted up were all about what they were wearing and how cool it was to have a little limelight.
• Vince Papale, the guy Wahlberg portrays in Invincible, a true story about an Average Joe who gets a shot at playing in the NFL, is even nicer. At one party I attended, Papale stood out for his attitude. He was just thrilled to be alive. He was running around introducing people to his son and daughter - cute kids. He was grateful that Wahlberg did him justice in the film. He was just having fun.
• The funniest comedians are the ones who tell stories, not jokes. Actor, stand-up, and former MTV VJ Bll Bellamy put on a pretty good show at B.E.D. nightclub in South Beach Friday night, and it occured to me that he might've told one joke. The rest were stories about his childhood, his upbringing, good and bad scenes from the old neighborhood. So it's understandable why comedian Rick Reynold's "Only the truth is funny" routine was so successful back in the day.
• Finally, in praising the Colts' amazing offense, let's not forget that you also have to stop the other team from scoring in order to win. That's why I'm bucking the pro analysts and picking Da Bears to take it this evening.

That's all for me, folks. I'll pick things up after the game.

Quick hits

This year is starting off slowly, and I guess that's a good thing. It means I have fewer complaints three days in.

A buddy and colleague griped today for the nth time in umpteen days that something - I think it was a vending machine soft drink today - tasted like cat pee, which made me wonder how he knew.

We all say stuff like that. I've complained that some dish tasted like a$$. I've heard other people say other things taste like: crap, vomit, garbage, and dirt.

I can see the vomit, 'cause in theory as its on its way out you're tasting it again, like it or not. And I can see the dirt - in the form of sand, if you were the skinny kid who got it kicked in his face by the buff guy on the beach, or in the form of mud pies, if you had older siblings who had dreams of being pastry chefs as children.

The other stuff? As Homer Simpson would say, you need Jebus if you've tasted any of it.

My neighborhood has fewer rif-raf. Last year, weeks after Jan. 1 some folks were still shooting off so many fireworks it sounded like a firing range. Freaked my dog out something fierce. This year I wasn't home on NYE, but I hear the random fireworks stopped shortly after midnight. Since then I've heard only the occasional pop. Besides if it ain't Dec. 31st or July 4th and you're setting off fireworks - and you're grown - you're a loser.

I am a firm believer in the notion that the truth is stranger than fiction. "Just say no" may not have worked. But if you wanna keep your kids off of drugs just show them the letter from a "reader" I saw posted on a wall in the wire room (mail, supplies, fax machine, etc.) at the newspaper Tuesday afternoon. The writer apologized for a previous correspondence to the Herald in which he'd apparently claimed to have recorded (I think video) proof of alien existence. He said he was high on LSD at the time...lots of it, as I recall. He said a lot more. But I was laughing too hard to read the rest clearly.

Anywho, I'm going to sleep. It's 1:46 a.m. right now. This'll be the earliest I've gone to bed in a while - another NY resolution, to limit the number of late nights to three per week.

If you're an insomniac and you're bored here are links to my last two stories. The first is a profile of a cop. The second is my weekly Q&A column. This week's column subject is a Miami-area woman who was recently knighted in Rome: The Cop , The Dame.