We'd Like an Operational Definition of "Super".

Yes, the Super Bowl really does stink. Or to be more accurate, Super Bowl week can be downright depressing. Our spiritual 3rd person forebearers at DeadSpin have a nice wrap-up here, staring into the nihilistic cultural abyss created this week by the Super Bowl and divining the relevance thereof.

Look, we’re American capitalist pigs to the core but even the annual Super Bowl week and its celebration of conspicuous consumption shames us somewhat. And its not just because the Chargers lost last week because we feel this way every year… the season really does end after the conference championship games as far as we’re concerned. Never before in the history of mankind has there been hype, hysteria and general self-gratifying hyperbole that has consistently failed to meet those expectations. And in that sense it feels very much like the unsatisfying conclusion of the college football season as brought to you by the Tostitos BCS.

So what does all this say about our society? We’re not really sure. We’ll leave that up to the more insightful types like Robert Lipsyte, NYT columnist and model of emasculated East Coast pomposity:

“in the late 1970s, I even attended anti-Super Bowl parties at which we ostentatiously ignored the game, jogged, ate healthful snacks, and screened Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly films, dividing ourselves into Fred-ites or Gene-ists to compare the two, a sorry substitute for judging the finesse vs. power of, say, O.J. Simpson vs. Jim Brown. There was a certain subversive pleasure in the anti-Super Bowl parties, but not enough. It was less like the back-alley thrills of paganism in the early centuries of Christianity's ascension than the dull rationality of organized Atheism.”

Wow… dontcha wish you were there? At the pagan thing, that is. And do you despise this guy as much as we do yet?

Anyway, absent a compelling reason to go to a Super Bowl party, we’re 50/50 as to whether or not we will even watch the game. Honest. Its supposed to rain Sunday (thank City Hall) which is a shame because it would be the perfect opportunity to get out to the mountains or desert since Team Lakeside will be getting bombed indoors instead of out.

... and just when we start believing ourselves, we run across this .... found while searching for the image of sexual assault above. Hot wings, anyone?