THE DAILY DIVERSION

I'm sure there are 6 billion blog today talking about the Super Bowl and how great the game and commercials were. Well, I'll get to that, but I'm going to hit on some other highlights and lowlights of my weekend.

First off, as a birthday present for my beautiful wife, I bought two tickets to see John Mayer here in Memphis at the FedEx Forum. She'd been talking about going to see him for a while, and while I was skeptical about paying for it, I still led her to believe we weren't doing it. Originally, we had thought the Western had a home basketball game this weekend, so we were going to do that. When I realized that the game was the next weekend I had to switch gears. She had already made plans to visit everyone and their Mother, so I had to act fast.

I got with my contact at the Forum so that we could get some decent seats. After all, if I was going to pay for the show, I at least want to see it up close and personal. My tickets were sitting, waiting at will-call Tuesday morning. However, Adrianne had already talked with her Mother about spending time together and didn't want to crush her feelings by telling her we weren't doing anything this weekend and weren't coming in. So, with my hand forced, I called her Mom to let her know what was going on. I didn't want my birthday present surprise ruined, so it was worth it.

I picked up the tickets Thursday afternoon and found a birthday card for my love. I had originally planned on putting it in her bag that she takes to school with her, so she'd find it sometime during the day. All the while, leading up to this point, I made her think we didn't have any plans all weekend, even when she kept pushing and pushing.

Anyway, at 4 am on Friday, we found out that Shelby County Schools were canceled, so I had to adjust slightly. I knew she would be grading some papers sometime throughout the day, so I strategically placed the card inside her laptop. As they say, the rest is history!

The show was really good. We had good seats, just at the left-hand corner of the stage, about 4 rows up. Other than one drunk-assed idiot that kept standing up dancing, we had a great, unobstructed view of the entire show. I'll give this much to John Mayer... He sure can wail on a guitar.

We were supposed to meet up with some friends after the show, but we waited outside the club for what felt like half an hour (actually probably 10 minutes or less), but it was freezing cold, so we called it a night. Adrianne was happy with her birthday present, and we were both happy because we got to do something other than sit around watching TV.

Saturday came around and we didn't have much in the way of plans. Adrianne's been needing some new dress pants, so we went on that mission. The mission was, pretty much, a failure, except that she found some pants that she likes, but didn't want to buy them here. She's going to look in Kentucky this weekend, and, hopefully buy them there. I, on the other hand, found a pair of Johnston and Murphy brown shoes for $71. They were regularly $130, bu the store was going out of business and everything was 50% to 70% off. They didn't have much in the way of clothes left and I didn't feel like I was getting a good deal on a shirt that was still $135, after it had been reduced. That's just me though.

Saturday night rolled around and I decided I'd make Adrianne, Mary Jo, and myself some Indian food. I started cooking a little after 6 pm and finished shortly after 7. I missed Western's tipoff, but didn't think too much about it. It's a rarity that we get to sit around and hang out. I did have the internet radio broadcast on, but could barely hear it.

By the time we finished up eating and hanging out it was nearly halftime. I think I heard the last 2 minutes of the first half, and, needless to say, I wasn't happy. I listened through halftime, just to see what Mike and Hal had to say about our performance, anxiously awaiting the second half, and some serious change in our fortunes.

Well, it didn't happen. We came out in the second half as crappy as we were in the first half. Adrianne was sitting on the couch flipping channels when I decided, for the first time I can every remember, "Screw this! I'm not going to let this game ruin my evening. I'd rather watch a movie with my wife than end up being pissed off that we won. If we comeback and win, great. If not, then I'm not missing anything." Anyway, I was getting pissed off at the people in the chat room, so it wasn't doing my blood pressure any good.

We were down 17 when I closed Winamp and shut the lid on my laptop. We went on to watch the movie "16 Blocks" which was pretty good. After that we hit the bed. Yes, it was only about 10:30, but we planned on watching Saturday Night Live. I made it through most of it, but Adrianne was knocked out about 45 minutes into it.

Sunday morning we were both up pretty early, with nothing to do. There was nothing on TV and we couldn't go anywhere yet. It's amazing that, even in the day and age of everything, all the time, most stores still don't open up until at least noon. So, we sat around doing nothing. I read through all of the stupid posts (and a few good ones) on Hilltopper Haven and browsed the internet for anything of interest.

We ended up running out to a TJ Maxx to hunt down some pants for my wife. We found them, but, of course, she didn't like something about them. So, we returned home, still, with nothing to do. I ironed a couple week's worth of work shirts while Adrianne cleaned the kitchen and graded papers. We couldn't wait for the Super Bowl to get here.

We both were rooting for the Colts. Adrianne likes Peyton Manning and all of his goofiness. I like the Colts because I started watching them back when I lived in Owensboro. My old roommate there is a cousin of Ken Dilger, who was a tight end for the Colts at the time. He took me to a few games where I got to meet the whole family, so I just kind of latched on. It didn't hurt that my favorite team, the Raiders, absolutely suck balls!

Anyway, we both had our Colts t-shirts on and were ready to go. We made up a batch of meatballs, and, since we weren't having a crowd over for the game, I decided to just make some spaghetti and serve dinner before the game. We invited Mary Jo to come on down and watch the game with us too.

Obviously the game was enjoyable for us. We liked seeing Peyton get the proverbial "monkey" off his back. I hope, now, that all of the talking heads will just shut up about him, and let him continue toward being one of the greatest QB's of all time. I also had a soft spot in my heart for Tony Dungy. He's always seemed like a class act to me, even when he was with Tampa Bay (where he got ZERO acknowledgment for building the team that Jon Gruden ended up winning the Super Bowl with against my Raiders).

Now, onto the important stuff... I was thoroughly displeased with the commercials. There is always so much hype, but ZERO substance this year. Outside of two or three commercials, they pretty much sucked. I liked the Kevin Federline commercial and a couple of the Bud Light commercials, but really, cares about how much some computer program can boost your sales ability. Did they really need to show that one twice?

If you ask me, the commercials this year were a bust, and totally forgettable. However, Prince was pretty good during the halftime show. It, definitely, was better than seeing the Rolling Stones or Janet Jackson with JT. At first I didn't want to watch the halftime show, but once I realized it was going to rain, I knew I wanted to see it. Truthfully, I just wanted to see how Prince would handle it. He's never seemed like that "macho" of a guy, so I assumed he'd be a little bitch and half-heartedly do the show.

No way! He totally went balls out and played his ass off. I commend him for that. Actually, I even admire him for it. Hell, he could've easily been electrocuted out there, while playing an electric guitar in a driving rain storm. That's insane if you ask me. However, he played like a champ, and gets some major "cool points" from me.

Yeah, this was a long one, but I wanted to let everyone know what was going on!

Lastly, today is my big sister's birthday! Happy Birthday Sis!