The Football World Series?

“Dot.calm” by Jane Silverman. Member Since 2012

It’s that time of year again – the house is stocked with guacamole and chips and the blender is ready to go. The menu is set and the friends invited to watch the 54th Super Bowl (even though the Giants aren’t playing in it…).

While I will do my best to root for one of the two teams I have no interest in, truthfully, I am in it to watch the Super Bowl commercials and the Halftime Show, and eat large quantities of Pigs in a Blanket and Publix’ non breaded baked chicken wings (which you can have delivered to your Ocean Reef home by using instacart.com or shipt.com with all your shopping handpicked and delivered direct from the store). As someone who has never attended a football game, I am delighted that I will finally get my Sundays and Mondays (and did I mention Thursdays?) back (and Mike!) with the end of the football season thankfully just days away.

Spot-on

If you want to get a head start on your Super Bowl commercial viewing pleasure, visit superbowl-ads.com, which is an online archive of Super Bowl commercials up to 2020, including classics like Apple’s dystopian themed “1984,” Betty White’s Snickers ad (2010), McDonald’s Larry Bird vs Michael Jordan (1993), and so many others.

Game Plan

The Cultural Center’s annual Super Bowl LIV Tailgate is the best: where else can you get complimentary pompoms and watch the game on a 50ft+ HDTV screen delivered in 7.1 Dolby digital surround sound? The party starts at 4:30 p.m. with kick-off at 6:30 p.m.

Can’t make it? The game is available to watch live for free on the small screen when you download the NFL nfl.com, FoxSports foxsports.com, Xfinity xfinity.com/apps, or Yahoo! Sports mobile.yahoo.com/sports apps. Each offers exclusive interviews and stories to enhance your Super Bowl experience.

Screen Pass

Jennifer Lopez is encouraging the world to get “On the Floor” when she performs her hit song during the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Look for #JLOSuperBowlChallenge on TikTok to learn her dance moves and follow along at home during the performance. The video has nearly 6 million views and about that many people have posted videos of themselves “busting a move” and trying to become “TikTok famous.”

Sadly, I admit that TikTok tiktok.com is one of my guilty pleasures. It is an addictive website with very short creative and mostly joyful videos of regular folks and celebrities dancing and lip-syncing songs and giving dance or art lessons. There are babies being goofy, dogs being goofy, dogs and cats being goofy together. 500 million people every day swipe up on the screen to watch video after video, download their favorites and bring a smile to their day.

Super Bowl Trivia

I am told by a certain football aficionado that I live with, that any sports nut already knows the following factoids, so this is to help the football-challenged (like me) sound almost knowledgeable:

• Through 53 Super Bowls, the coin toss has landed on tails 28 times compared to 25 heads.
• 13 of the past 15 Super Bowls have been won by the team wearing white… this year the San Francisco 49ers are wearing white and gold and the Kansas City Chiefs are wearing red.
• Eight million pounds of guacamole is consumed on Super Bowl – the biggest avocado day of the year — which explains where all the pits come from to make the avocado straws now used at Ocean Reef. It turns out the Avocado seed has a cellular structure similar to latex and doesn’t get soggy like paper ones.
• This is Miami’s 11th time hosting the Super Bowl at its stadium.
• The first Super Bowl was January 15, 1967 between the NFL (Green Bay Packers) and AFL (Kansas City Chiefs) champions at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.
• The next Super Bowls will take place in Tampa, FL in 2021, Los Angeles, CA in 2022, Glendale, AZ in 2023 and New Orleans, LA in 2024.
• The leather for every Super Bowl football is from the Horween Tannery in Chicago, IL and is sourced from heavy native steers (not pigskins!) from ranches in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. All-American Arnold Horween Sr played football professionally and was a player and later head coach for the Harvard football team 100 years ago.
• The footballs produced for the Super Bowl were made by hand at Wilson’s Ohio factory since the very first game in 1967. Each official game ball is stamped with the Roman numeral 54 and “The Duke,” named in honor of football legend (“and NY Giants owner!”, adds Mike) — Wellington “Duke” Mara.

“When you don’t know that you don’t know, it’s a lot different than when you do know that you don’t know.” – Bill Parcells, NFL Football Coach