Dear Kid,

Madison Avenue thinks I am A) old and B) falling apart.

“Madison Avenue” is where all the advertising companies used to be, so saying Madison Avenue means advertising.

It seems all the commercials I’m seeing on TV are targeted at those over 150.

There is nothing wrong with aging (except the extra cost of hair color). I consider getting old far better than the alternative.

On the other hand, there is nothing particularly flattering about being considered old by the advertisers.

No, I do not need life insurance targeted to those over 80 (You cannot be turned down!). Nor do I require medication that allows me to get up in the morning, go to bed at night, or do any of the activities of daily living that people sometimes require medication for.

No, I do not wish to discuss retirement options. No, I don’t need consultations about Medicare (or any of its various parts).

Madison Avenue thinks I am old and falling apart.

Or possibly, I am watching the same shows that people who are old and falling apart are watching….

Love, Mom

P.S. Happy Anniversary to those young people!

Dear Kid,

Is it me, or are football players getting bigger? I turned to My Friend the Internet for information.

After much scientific analysis, data regression, and an apple, I concluded that the average professional football player is big.

Big as in larger than the ordinary human. Big as in there is a reason that football pants only go to the knee (any more fabric and the league would go broke). Big as in “Daaaammmn!” (Extra points if you get the reference.)

It’s important that football players are big—because all the other football players are big. It is important that football players are strong—because all the other football players are strong. It is important that football players are fast—because splat is only fun if you’re the splat-er rather than the splat-ee.

This year’s Super Bowl was a feast of have and have nots seen and seen not.

We saw puppies and more puppies and Super Bowl babies and Doritos babies and cars and even some football that didn’t include unsportsmanlike conduct. We saw the longest punt return in the history of the Super Bowl. We saw a two point conversion.

We saw a lot of sacks and a lot of turnovers. And a really sad FG attempt that had our resident kicker saying, “Oh, I feel so bad for him. The commentators need to stop talking about it. I’m sure he feels bad enough.”

Did you notice that Cam’s chewing gum matched his uniform? Important color coordination. I think that’s worth at least 2 style points but negative five for Who Lets Someone Play with Gum in Their Mouth?

We heard the announcers talk about Athletic Trainers (shout out!) and we saw a great halftime show.

There was a lot that we didn’t see in this year’s Super Bowl.

We didn’t see OT, because Peyton. We didn’t see dabbing by Cam, because defense. We didn’t see a safety (frowny face).

We didn’t see a drop kick bounced on the ground. It’s legal, it used to be done a lot, but now it seems QBs and kickers are leaving that kind of drop kick to rugby players.

We didn’t see illegal leverage. This does not refer to using the same cash to place multiple bets (the finance majors reading this understood that one). Illegal leverage is when the defense pushes or pulls members of their own team during a FG or PAT.

We had a long National Anthem and orange beverage being poured on the coach (important if you’re following the prop bets).

In Summary: We need to go back to Roman Numerals.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It’s Super Bowl Sunday (which is almost as good as Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day but with better TV coverage). Not only are the traditional bets in play (who will win, who will lose, who will come out on top in the office square betting), but prop bets are going crazy.

You remember about Prop Bets right? They are the fabulously funky bets about everything other than the score of the game. Here are some of my faves available this year.

Note: You are a college student without lots of excess cash. All your bets should be for things like who washes the dishes after dinner, who takes out the trash this week, or other non-monetary consequences.

The second best prop bet for this year is how many times “dab” or “dabbing” will be said by announcers during the broadcast. Yes, I know what dabbing is (read here if you don’t) because I am twelve kinds of cool and I looked it up weeks ago. I don’t intend to count, but the betting is over two or under two and it’s hard to imagine they’ll say it less than twice. (NOTE: Halftime doesn’t count.)

The best prop bet for this year is whether “Left Shark” will make an appearance during halftime. You can also bet on which song Cold Play will play first (but not whether they’ll be cold), and what color shoes Beyoncé will be wearing.

Peyton Manning things you can bet on include whether he’ll announce his retirement in the post-game interview, whether he’ll throw a pick 6, and if he’ll be seen crying at any point during the broadcast.

Speaking of post-game interviews, you can bet on who the Super Bowl MVP will mention first (God, team, city/fans, coach, family, or something else).

You can place bets on a zillion things related to the coin toss, three zillion things related to kickers and punters, and five zillion things related to when scoring happens.

You can bet on whether Cam Newton will break the Super Bowl record for must rushing yards by a QB (see “dabbing” above).

You can—I swear I am not making this up—bet on the exact outcome of who wins the Super Bowl AND who wins the presidential election. You can bet on the Carolina Panthers winning the Super Bowl and the Golden State Warriors winning the NBA title. You can bet on whether the goals in the Montreal/Carolina NHL game February 7^th will be higher than the total number of receptions by Greg Olsen, and whether the Arsenal goals February 7 will be higher than the number of Peyton Manning TD passes.

You can bet about whether Mike Carey will be wrong about a challenge, whether there will be an earthquake during the game, and how long the national anthem will be.

You cannot—as far as I know—bet on whether your mother will stay awake to watch the entire game or what commercial people will be talking about tomorrow.

Happy Super Bowl.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Happy February! Happy Super Bowl Sunday! And Happy Groundhog Day (one day early)! Or maybe it’s Getting Ready for Groundhog Day…

That’s a lot of happy for one cold Sunday morning, and I for one plan to make the most of all this joyousness.

As you may recall, I love all things Punxsutawney Phil. I still have “Talk Dad into going to Punxsutawney for Groundhog Day” on my to-do list.

I love the top hats and I love that little groundhog face and I love the hope that spring may be on its way sooner than we thought. I love the idea that Punxsutawney Phil lives forever (like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy only furrier).

Today I love the idea of a commercial with puppies and Clydesdales and Phil. I’m not holding my breath, but it would be pretty fun don’t you think?

Everyone in the land (and by “everyone in the land” I mean some people) are very busy getting ready for the Big Game. Personally, I read one column in today’s paper. Beyond that, I’m pretty sure that for me “getting ready” means making sure the Puppy’s walked and fed before game time and finding the remotes (not always the easiest thing to do in our family room).

Perhaps I should train the puppy to sniff out TV remotes. Dogs are trained to sniff out all sorts of incredible things—why not TV remotes?

In other news, today Dad discovered that Trivia Crack exists. He discovered this by reading a small article in the USA Today section of the newspaper.

Dad: Do you know about Trivia Crack?
Me: Yeah
Dad: Do you play Trivia Crack?
Me: Um, yeah.
Dad: Are you addicted to Trivia Crack?
Me: Somewhat
Dad: Really?
Puppy: Banana!

Hope you get lots of work done before you get sucked in to All Things Super.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Last night was the Super Bowl.

As I predicted, many potato chips were consumed, many commercials were shown, and the Vince Lombardi Trophy went to Seahawks in a largely uncontested battle blowout.

RECAP

PreGame

Queen Latifah sang. A horse ran on the field. There were fireworks.

Renee Fleming sang (fab outfit) with a flyover. (In case you’re curious, it ran 1:53, easily under the 2:25 prop bet line.)

Denver had a lot more captains than Seattle making for very uneven handshakes. Joe Namath tried to mess things up by tossing the coin too early. I’m pretty sure his fur coat got to him. Seattle won the toss with tails (you should have listened to me).

First Quarter

The Seahawks kicked off and there was a big pile up of players short of the fifteen. Less than 15 seconds into the game, there is a SAFETY! I love safeties. Positively my favorite signal. (Makes the referees look like striped dreidels.)

After a bunch of plays, the 26 yard field goal attempt gets a penalty and becomes a 31 yard attempt which is no problem at all for Hauschka.

After a bunch of plays where it wasn’t clear anyone really wanted to play offense, Seattle settled for another field goal, proving that you can do it the hard way.

Best play so far: Hauschka’s kickoff hits the cross bar. Love it.

First quarter thoughts on commercials. Meh. But I did like the cow commercial and the Cheerios commercial. Ellen DeGeneres was ok, but more because she’s adorable than because I liked the commercial.

Second Quarter

The second quarter began with a couple of awesome commercials. There was a cancer survivor one by a car company, and a great GoDaddy one in which Gwen, the puppet maker, quit her job on national TV.

Seattle decided it might be nice to score in a more traditional way, so they scored a TD. PAT np. 15-0.

Did I mention that the Broncos hadn’t even managed a first down? Apparently someone clued Denver in about that so they decided to get one. And then a couple more. Which proved to be of interest to no one except the statisticians since Seattle intercepted the ball and ran it back for a TD. (And the announcers agree with Dad about why it happened was so there was peace in the world for a moment.) PAT no biggie. 22-0.

Love, love, love the Colbert commercial for pistachios. Best dressed eagle ever. And a great Muppet commercial for a car. So far, the animals and the puppets are winning the commercial wars.

Second quarter ends. I’m glad I’m not in the Denver locker room during half time.

Halftime happens.

The rain begins. Or it might be the Bronco fans crying.

A thought: the Broncos should have asked Bruno Mars to come in to give them some footwork lessons.

The commentators didn’t have much football to talk about so they gave a thorough analysis of the halftime show.

THE SECOND HALF

Third Quarter

The third quarter didn’t start any better for the Broncos. Harvin takes the kickoff all the way back for a TD. And the dude had hip surgery in August. I am in awe.

I admit, I really like the doberhuahua commercial. Dad likes the Tebow no contract commercials. Social media peeps think it’s cool that Tebow has taken the fact that he doesn’t have a contract and turned it into a big asset. Must agree. We also like the Axe Make Love Not War commercial.

Thinking about leaving early to beat the traffic. Oh, wait. We’re not actually at the game.

Nice Bruce Willis commercial about Hugs being better than blowing things up. Very nice Budweiser commercial about soldiers coming home. Don’t know what it has to do with beer, but nice commercial.

Seattle. Touchdown of the Amazing variety. 36-0.

Dumb commercial line of the night: Is there anything more American than America? Bob Dylan ought to be ashamed of himself. (“Auto” be ashamed?)

Is it me or is this a Very Long Third Quarter?

And with 2 seconds left in the quarter, the Broncos score. Yawn. 36-8

Fourth Quarter

Little dude from Seattle catches ball for TD. 43-8. I’m running out of fingers and toes.

Hauschka takes very interesting steps for a kickoff. Just thought I’d mention it. Don’t have that much else to talk about, y’know?

Love the Jaguar commercial with the British villains. Thumbs down for the Oikos commercial that is only barely saved from true tackiness by the arrival of the rest of the Full House gang.

Extra points if you recognized the music in the fourth quarter TMobile commercial.

It is not a close game when you can play the 12^th string in the Super Bowl. And the commentators sound bored. You get the feeling the Broncos just want this to be over.

Best Buds commercial for Budweiser with the puppy and Clydesdales—awesome.

The Gatorade was orange. And a double dunk in case you’re keeping track of these things.

SUMMARY

• Having extra captains doesn’t necessarily help.
• Having a great outfit for the National Anthem does.
• Malcolm Smith won the MVP award. Love that no one saw that coming.
• Denver must have thought all those Xs and Os were hugs and kisses rather than people to tackle. I’d blame it on the Axe Make Love Not War commercial except that didn’t air until the second half.
• There is no good time for a potty break during the Super Bowl. They should really run dead air for a few minutes somewhere in there.
• There was a lot of love and kindness in the commercials. Not sure what that means…

Love, Mom

The music in the TMobile commercial was from Disney’s Robin Hood. The animated one. Best Robin Hood Ever. Seriously. Ever.