What a difference

So we met Marianna at Maderas on the beach for dinner last night. Patsy and Bernie were under the weather as was her friend Brady, so it was just us three. The spread Maderas does at night involves setup on the beach with fancy dinnerware/glasses and colourful accents on each table. When we got there, being first, we got a table at the front of the setup closest to the water, but far enough away that it would not bother us. Dominique had a Caesar salad and I had something with tomato slices and some fresco cheese. I ordered the shrimp fajitas and the ladies both got a fab chicken dish.

We were there until about 8:15 and grabbed a cab home. We spent close to what we spent (or got ripped off for) the previous night BUT this time it was worth it. This morning we walked down to our favourite Cafécito and had the usual ... cold coffees and I had some carrot cake (somebody's gotta eat it).

When back we (actually mostly she) prepped for the whole chicken dinner. I watched the AFC conference final and was treated to the worst of the commercial topics anyone could find ...

• Betting
• Fast (poisonous) food
• Movies with guns, violence, exploding cars
• Drug companies peddling there wares
• Tech companies with overpriced apparati and hollow promises of rate freezes for the first four years of a contract
• Lifestyle automobile commercials with vehicles climbing 10° slopes and people frolicking in the water ... the message being if you buy one of our ridiculously priced pieces of s__t then you too will be laughing and enjoying yourself too

Then there's what these idiot TV networks do like pushing and pushing and pushing advertisements in our faces ad infinitum. So ... 2½ minutes of football then seven stupid commercials. Some of the gravity-defying events in these stupid commercials carry a do not try this at home. I, for one, am so stupid that if it were not for that advice, I probably would drive a Toyota at 80 miles down a city street, dodging mail trucks and hot dog stands.

These networks as well often split the screen and each side is too small to really watch. Yes, we are very impressed with what you can do, but I have a wish list for these morons:

• One screen at a time okay IDIOTS?
• Yes we get it ... you have made so much progress in racial and gender equality that most of your ads involve minority players ... again, very impressed, so why don't they go f___ themselves
• No the colour commentary does not add value ... just get these commentators to shut up and let us enjoy the game and yes, we are very impressed with how much they know about the game I am watching ... again, why not go ____ yourself?

Lynn told me how dangerous the 49ers are and it sure did not look that way in the first half. The Lions allowed 27 points in the second half which was their demise. We went to the dock earlier today to see if the SailFest people were there selling ride tickets. They were not there today. This event lasts two weeks. Boat owners volunteer their time and riders pay for the privilege of gong out on one of the boats. All the money raised goes to Por Los Niños charity, one and the same as where my Thursday music tips end up. In the three weeks I have been doing this I have raised about 3,700 pesos for this charity which checks out at about $200 CAD.

By the end of the NFL game today, I was tired of those stupid commercials. Once I counted how many there were in a row, arriving at seven. Then they went back to the game for one play that ended a quarter (maybe 25 seconds), then off for another eight commercials. I think I may pass on the Superbowl on February 11 as I do not have the patience to be insulted by companies that profess to give an s___ about us but really only want our money. Yes you, in particular ... 

• State Farm (you call us your neighbour [until we make a claim and ask And you are?]).
• Ford, with all their stupid allowances which, at the end of the day, are marketed as $6,000 in discounts on a truck that usually retails for $82,000 but is makred up to $91,000 before the incentive which negates their stupid offer of discounts.
• Taco Bell unveiling the carcinogenic line of new "tasty offerings" which contain enough calories and saturated fat to ensure their customers do not live as long as they could without their crap.
• H&R Block ... come over to us and we will treat you well and increase your refund ... increase shmincrease ... they think they are so smart they know all the loopholes better than CRA and the IRS. Here's a loophole that would fit perfectly up their derrieres ... NOT.
• CBS pushing their stupid new shows, the most ridiculous being Farmer Wants a Wife. What is this, the 8th century. All that progress you boast about gender equality/neutrality and then this. Puleese!
• Fox ... I cannot comment on these idiots as the words to describe how they treat their clients have not been invented yet.

So the NFL game today licked off about 5:30pm my time and finished regulation time about 8:47. That's 60 minutes of football and 15 minutes between halves. Here's the final tally ...

• Game start to finish = 197 minutes
• 60 minutes of play becomes 197-60 = 137 minutes
• Break between halves = 15, bringing the total time down to 137-15 = 122 minutes
• 30 minutes chewed up between plays, bringing the other time to 122-30 = 92 minutes.

What did they do with the other 100 minutes? You guessed it, nattered at us incessantly with their stupid commercials. 47% of the time for commercials. Not to mention the time between plays which often leads to a split screen where on of their sponsors gets to preach at us using a commercial we have already seen 3,409,341 times this NFL season. And they think they are so smart and creative that we will rush to give them our money after having insulted us with their crap! Any company that has the money to advertise on this level of sporting event, I have one set of two and one set of three words for you:

1. Bye bye
2. Go f___ yourselves