Day-Old Sport is as stale as doughnuts

The Superbowl was an annual tradition in my household. We would celebrate by either visiting someone's house or watch the game with people at our own house. Food and alcoholic beverages were always available in copious amounts, and we had a good time watching the game and, of course, the commercials. It usually didn't matter who was playing, but if it was a team we had followed, we had a better time of course.

I haven't watched American football in years. Since I don't follow any sports, this shouldn't be any sort of surprise, but this disconnection is fairly big from my family. I can't even nod and fake it anymore. I just don't know anything, and it's nice not to be put in conversations where the water cooler talk revolves around sports anymore.

When they happen to show the Super bowl here, there is such a large delay that people don't really get to enjoy it. It's on in the middle of the afternoon, with no commercials and Korean commentators trying to explain the game on top of the regular announcers. It's bewildering, as it's the only American Football shown on television the entire year, so people don't have any idea what is happening. I don't know any Koreans that are fans of American football anyway, so I don't know who is watching this particular broadcast anyway. I guess it would be unemployed ex-pats or people with VCRs. I think it's just so they can brag about how many countries it's broadcast in when the game starts or whatever.

Today at work I got invited to a Super bowl party by two of the teachers. They had instituted a "media ban" on telling them anything about the game. They were going to go to a bar and watch a taped episode from the United States so that they watch the commercials as well as see the game "fresh". No gambling, of course, but just day-old sports. They treated this fairly seriously, so I let them have their fun.

I declined the party, as I don't really care about the game with out my family around, and the commercials are on the Internet already anyway. Since the game was just a means to an end, I really didn't want to hang out at a bar for three hours on a weekday as an excuse. Some people miss that sort of comradeship, but I'm not one of them. I get the appeal, but it's not my style.

Previous Entry:[Previous entry: "ESL podcasts. Finally something useful from a podcast."], Next Entry: [Next entry: "Inkblot English"]