Stupor Bowl
All week, I had a difficult time getting into the Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals.
Zero interest. None.
I thought I had gotten over the Giants losing several weeks prior, but as the game was getting started in Tampa, it finally hit me.
How the hell are we not playing in this game?
It pissed me off even more. So much so that I didn’t even choose to hangout with friends as is customary on Super Sunday. I had my spaghetti and 20 ounce steak in my home and you couldn’t give me a better alternative.
Actually, I have implemented a self-imposed hiatus where I will not be going out to socialize on weekends where I do not have studio time until the third week of March, but to hell with accuracy.
I keep replaying parts of that loss against the Eagles for some reason.
I'm not sure why, but it keeps happening. At inopportune moments, I'll think about how open Steve Smith was when Eli Manning missed him. The 3rd and 20 play that changed the whole game, along with others.
I come up with the losers lament that the Giants are still a better team than Philly. Very likely, I will continue to believe that for months into the off-season. Listen, we all know that the Eagles did the Cardinals dirty work for them.
I will still hold true that had the Giants gotten past the Eagles in that game, there would have been no way in hell the Cardinals would have won in Giants Stadium the next week.
Nothing can change my mind on this. From there, it would have been our team playing in the Super Bowl.
Unfortunately, we will never find out.
This is probably a good thing.
Put the Giants in the Cardinals position as Ben Roethlisberger found Santonio Holmes for that incredible winning touchdown in the corner and I likely would have been depressed for a minimum of a month.
It would have been too much to take. The Cardinals looked like they were dead after that interception James Harrison made to make the score 17-7 at halftime. It was an incredible comeback for them to make. When Larry Fitzgerald streaked away from the Steelers defense to give Arizona a 23-20 lead, I thought about what the scene would have been if we were at Trinity with all my Giants fan friends jumping for joy at what would have been (at the time) the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.
Yet as the Steelers kept making plays in that final drive, I could have pictured the emotions of everyone else and me seeing our hearts being ripped out.
This is why if I wanted the team to lose; it had to be before the Super Bowl. Losing that game is too tough to take. It is even worse if you lose in the fashion the Cardinals did. Why? Because there is no consolation prize or any solace.
You are forgotten about.
Add to it that when you lose like that in “that” game, very rarely do you ever get back no matter how good you are.
I thought the Giants would have lost to the Steelers had they gotten to that game. However, upon further review I have concluded that they would have repeated as world champions had they played again.
The Steelers did not play like gallant champions. They played like the flawed good team that they were. Had they been better, that game would not have been competitive and I would have been sleeping by the start of the fourth quarter.
The Giants were the best team in the league that unfortunately did not get a chance to prove it.
In many ways, they are the uncrowned champions.
The Steelers and their fans may not want to hear that (nor should they care) but it’s true.
Would they have won with Burress on the field instead of at home, season over because of shooting himself in the leg?
Yes.
However, we will never really know for sure. It just ranks up there with another one of those "What If?" questions.
Just look ahead to next year.
The War Zone taking over!
I always wanted to know if I had the ability and confidence to get on the radio and not sound like a bumbling idiot.
Mind you, this has been a dream of mine since I was about 11 years old. Kept awake at night with talk radio and sometimes never getting a proper amount of sleep. I would use old cassette tapes and do my own shows and always hated hearing the sound of my voice.
As I would listen, I would say, "Who the hell is this?"
I got away from it in college for reasons I am still not sure of yet. Perhaps it was because the SJU radio studios resembled a space area at Public Storage. Writing became my love and it was all I would do right up until it was over. Then, I wasn't completely sure if I seriously wanted to do this 100 percent.
Consider it nervousness or the fear of not making any reasonable amount of money to justify moving, Mom got into my ear and instructed me to get a job immediately to have some income coming in. For the last two plus years, I took that advice.
Look where that got me!
Sure, the money is "ok". But settling for "ok" is danger. It is as if to suggest that you are will to be content with what you are doing. In plain English, it’s called being a "paycheck collector". You know how many people are miserable at what they do? They wake in the morning and internally say, "Damn, I have to go to work today." At their desk (or designated area) during the day and they are counting the minutes until lunch hour and that is followed by the countdown until the day is over.
Think about that and then consider the fact of doing that for days, weeks, months and even years!
Why go through that? There is no point of putting yourself through excessive agita? And for what? To tell people how much the job sucks? As people, we all should be better than that.
Over these last seven weeks, all of my theories have been confirmed.
I love this. It is the best decision that I ever made.
I can only hope that this will lead me into the media industry and from there, my own niche can be carved out. Since I started learning "by doing", I have been able successfully start my own radio show and have done three episodes with many more to come.
I write, direct, produce and host the show myself. Putting it together solo is very difficult because you have to make sure you have all of your audio clips molded to your liking and run everything. For me, that is what makes it so much fun.
All of the control is in my hands.
Though my love is sports, the show is about more than that. Upcoming I'll feature shows dealing with movies, pop culture and politics. I love it all.
It's all about me.
I am in essence, my own executive producer. Editorial content is controlled by me and no one else. It has also been fun to get all my friends involved and have them be a part of the show. Most of them have never been on the radio before and they get their first chance to do it. As words of encouragement, I have suggested that it is in essence just as if we were talking normally, only this time microphones are there.
The microphone is your friend.
As I get better at this and I am in the position to be marketed, my career will officially start. There won’t be any turning back. No regrets. Just two eyes staring ahead with a singular focus on trying to make it.
Will it be in Chicago? Who knows?
Could it be in New York? I would love to be that way.
Los Angeles or San Francisco? Works for me.
Boston or Philly? If that's how it worked out.
You can never predict the future. However, success is the one place I want all of this to end up.
New Shoes!!
You know, I had wanted to get a new pair of shoes for about two months now.
Full disclosure: I am not one to overly buy shoes. My feeling is that if it lasts for a year that is considered a happy marriage.
The shoes I had were wearing thin. During several rainstorms, my Timberland boots were susceptible to water finding its way into the shoe. How this was possible, I am not sure. Yet, it kept happening.
When he snow melted in late December and streets and sidewalks were nothing more than one big puddle, my shoes would find themselves soaked. I couldn’t take it anymore. Why don’t I just walk around with any shoes at all if my feet are just going to feel like water anyway?
Mind you, these were great shoes when this type of weather wasn't in play. Going out with those shoes were great.
Of course, nothing can really take me away from my sandals, which should be a sign to me that living in Southern California or Florida is actually a best-case scenario for me.
Yet this time, it appeared as if the consistently cold weather was getting the better of my shoes. I looked down one day and notice a tearing of the rubber along the side of it and that was the ultimate red flag. In this climate, it was only going to be a matter of time before slush started finding its way there.
Time was up.
The next day I quickly sped over to DSW in search for a new pair. I believe I walked around the store about five times and I struggled to find anything suitable to my liking. There were some steel toe shoes I saw that I know keep the water out, but when I tried them on, it seemed as if the damn thing weighed about twenty pounds!
You think I’ll be able to run for any period with those dragging me down? No way!
I ended up settling on some brown leather shoes that looks like something out of the show Gunsmoke or Bonanza. Before the days of baggy jeans, if you looked at them, you would probably cover your eyes and start thinking about country western stuff.
From the second I grabbed the box and made my way to the checkout, I kept trying to talk myself out of buying the shoes. They did not look terrible (which was part of the reason the box was in my possession) and compared to everything else I saw in the store, this was like settling for fourth place in the beauty contest.
When I got home, I broke out my “going out” jeans and put the new shoes on and it turned out that I actually liked the look. I did not look like a fool or as a potential cast member for Walker, Texas Ranger. All I need is for these shoes to last me is three months.
I am sure I’ll get by.
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