Billy Flynt
Pirate, 300 yrs too late
From CBS Sportsline.com http://www.sportsline.com/spin/story/9197061/1
ClayNation: 25 annoying Super Bowl party guests
Jan. 30, 2006
By Clay Travis
Every year, Super Bowl parties bring together awkward groupings of people who are then forced to sit and watch a football game. Inevitably this drives me crazy. Primarily because I don’t understand why I should suddenly be forced to watch football games with people who haven’t bothered to watch a game all season.
I mean, is there any other event that celebrates idiocy more? For instance, I don’t feel compelled to show up in New York City and crash some Broadway actors' Tony Awards party. You know why? Because I don’t like musicals and haven’t even seen a Broadway play in the past five years.
But I respect the fact that for someone who enjoys the Tonys, it would be sort of annoying for me to begin the night by saying, "I just don’t understand how anyone could ever like a musical." Yet, somehow, people arrive at Super Bowl parties and say things like, "I just don’t understand why the teams don’t score more touchdowns. Pass me a Zima," with absolute impunity. It’s lucky these parties only have plastic utensils.
Even worse than that, these Super Bowl gatherings require small-talk, ginger ale, finger foods, awkward banter, excessive praise of sugar-free sugar cookies that someone made, insufficient supplies of beer and overly abundant Mike’s Hard Lemonade, poor seating options and requiring you to listen to some guy explain what a first down is to his girlfriend with an IQ that would barely be sufficient to allow her to be executed were she to commit a murder.
Basically, the Super Bowl forces the legitimate football fan to be tortured for about four hours with people he or she wouldn’t even think of spending time with on any other sporting occasion. Essentially, a true football fan has three options when confronted with a Super Bowl gathering of football imbeciles: 1. Actually answer idiotic and rhetorical questions 2. Make everyone at the party uncomfortable by calling out the idiots and telling them to shut-up and 3. Doing your best to ignore the outrageous commentary and the idiots you're with.
Regarding this, I’ve always thought it would be classic for someone to roll up for a Super Bowl party, sit down on the couch and put on headphones to listen to the radio broadcast. If anyone is willing to do this at a party, send pictures and I will interview you. In an effort to make this experience somewhat more enjoyable, we here at ClayNation have devised a comprehensive list of people who you will hate to spend Super Bowl Sunday with.
1. The aforementioned fan who does not understand why teams don’t score more touchdowns.
This clown can be either male or female, and will begin speaking at any point when the score is not approaching 81-79. Which means always. Worse, there is always someone who seconds this opinion with a brilliant and nonsensical endorsement. "Yeah, why don’t they score more?" One appropriate response would be, "Because the football team is missing out on your offensive genius."
2. Girl with an exposed thong.
Inevitably she will sit right in front of you and you’ll think you’re clubbing in South Beach. The thong will be something ridiculous, like leopard print or have a saying like, "Sex kitten ... make me purr," which will be true but distracting. Of course this girl will lean forward on a pillow or something and you’ll miss several important third down plays because you are trying to keep your wife or girlfriend from noticing your obsession with the exposed thong.
3. Guy with a hat turned sideways.
Please, oh God, please could you not just turn your hat either forwards or backwards? Is that too much to ask? If you feel like it, ask this guy if he’s dancing in the half-time show or meeting Kevin Federline’s posse post-game.
4. Wife who brought the sugar-free sugar cookies.
And now you have to pretend to be impressed by some sugar substitute that you’ve never heard of. Oh great, now the sugar cookies taste like bread dipped in a bird-feeder. Man, these are great.
5. Guy who feels compelled to say three minutes into the game, "(Insert team’s name here) just didn’t come ready to play."
Really? I’m pretty sure the Super Bowl didn’t sneak up on either team. It’s not like Matt Hasselbeck was out shopping at Home Depot earlier that morning and then he suddenly realized, "Oh man, it’s the Super Bowl today, I better get to the stadium."
6. The fan who works at Denny’s and complains about how much the players get paid ... then suggests he or she could do their job.
Right, of course you could. Despite misconceptions that most players arrive in the NFL after proving themselves somewhere in college football, they actually get discovered as short-order cooks making Grand Slam breakfasts in Hoboken, NJ. Good point, run a post route and don’t come back.
7. Guy who draws sweeping conclusions from any and every play, particularly those that occur early in the first quarter and when the teams are separated by a single score.
"I’m telling you Seattle just can’t handle Pittsburgh today," he will say. Easy there Nostradamus. I’m pretty sure that four-yard off tackle play for a first down midway through the first quarter hasn’t defined the game.
8. Guy in the Dan Marino jersey.
There is always a guy in a Dan Marino jersey.
9. Boyfriend of girl with exposed thong.
He will be constantly eyeballing every other guy in the place in a kind of territorial way. He also will attempt to cuddle with his girlfriend so that her mid-riff bearing sweater can attempt to reconnect with her low-riding jeans. The cuddling will be unsuccessful.
10. Guy who confidently asserts, "It’s about time for the halfback pass," on first and ten from inside their own five.
Dude, give up on the halfback pass. If one team actually runs the halfback pass in said situation, just stand up and leave the game. Halfback pass guy is going to be emboldened and you really don’t need to or want to hear him demanding the double reverse on fourth and goal.
11. Guy who says, "He’s gonna score," every time a five-yard gain occurs.
Easy there hombre. There are players who aren’t on the screen. If this starts to get really annoying (and it will) start picturing this guy out drinking at the bar. For him, foreplay begins the moment any girl accidentally bumps into him standing in line at the bathroom.
12. Guy who calls for the quarterback to be replaced midway through the second quarter with the score something like 10-3.
"I’m just telling you (insert quarterback’s name here) is just not getting it done." You always have to love this guy. It doesn’t matter how many regular season games the starting quarterback has won or that no healthy starting quarterback has been replaced in the Super Bowl in either of your life times. Guaranteed, this guy has a message board name like Pantyraidingqbstuffer48. Feel free to ignore everything he says ... if you can. If not, log on to his favorite message board and choose as your own name Pantyraidingqbstuffr48. Gleefully destroy his message board "credibility" post by post.
13. Woman who is overly obsessed with the raffled scoring grid.
"Oh, and if the game finishes with a score of 3-2, Suzy will win. Yay, Suzy." Lean over to this woman, who I guarantee will be named something like Ronda, and give her the most difficult logic puzzle you can think of that incorporates the raffled scoring grid. Something like, "Ronda, if Pittsburgh scores one-half of the points that Seattle scores in the first quarter but three times as many as Seattle scores in the second quarter and each team alternates scores of 7, 3, 2, 3, 7 in the second half, whose square would win if there is a safety by Pittsburgh in the final minute?"
14. Guy who compares this game to his high-school game in New Mexico circa 1984.
Yeah, sure. The approximately three base defenses and three pass plays (screen right, slant, screen left) your team ran in those days really offer an outstanding template for the Super Bowl. I’m surprised Bill Cowher didn’t request the game film.
15. The person who spends the entire game cheering for ridiculous things like how many times a punted ball bounces or number of times players tap each other on the butt.
Make this fun for everyone. Start counting the number of times this person touches his or her hair, crosses his or her leg or eats a pretzel. Have Ronda keep a chart if necessary.
16. Guy who shows up wearing wristbands.
What, did he just step off a jet and come straight to your place from the Australian Open? At a crucial moment in the game, feel free to lift his arm and mop your brow with his wristbands. I mean, that’s what wristbands are for right?
17. Guy who keeps saying, "I can’t tell if the Seahawks are in the dime or the nickel," while the Seahawks are on offense.
They’re in the quarter ... please shut up.
18. The foreign dude who is studying abroad and keeps saying, "American football is only the second most popular football in the world."
Maybe so, but it’s the most popular football in this house and this country. Go have a strudel ... and take the metric system with you.
19. Woman who parades her fat kid around the room and says, "When Tommy grows up he’s going to play football."
Just because your kid is fat doesn’t mean he is going to play football. In fact, chances are, he’s just going to be fat. Please move him from in front of the television screen and tell him to put down the bowl of cheese-puffs.
20. Person who announces they only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, talks throughout the game broadcast and then shushes everyone during the commercial breaks.
Does this even require any analysis? Shun them ... or stone them during half-time.
21. The insider.
This person will have the most ludicrous connection imaginable to one of the teams. He/she will say they share a refrigerator repairman with Jerome Bettis yet will insist all night with some tidbit of knowledge like, "Jerome Bettis’ sub-zero had cornmeal inside," will determine the outcome of the game ... according to the refrigerator repairman.
22. Guy who is absolutely certain that, "(Insert coaches name here) doesn’t want to win."
You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’m sure the coach has been working 100-hour weeks since June so he can lose the biggest game of the year. Solid analysis ... go back to telling us about your new call-center job please.
23. Woman who says something like, "I don’t understand why the Steelers have such ugly colors ... black and yellow, yuck."
Because their primary market isn’t prissy broads drinking martinis at Super Bowl parties. Please be quiet.
24. Couple that gets into an argument over how many beers the guy is drinking.
This means the guy is going to drink twice as many more beers as he otherwise would have. Whatever you do, don’t offer to make this guy a Lemon Drop.
25. Guy who makes everyone who doesn’t care about football uncomfortable by telling someone else’s kid to shut up when they are running around the house screaming.
This will probably be your friend ... and it might be you. Take a tip from ClayNation and during a commercial break flash a $100 bill at the kids. Then go outside and hide a $5 bill in the most difficult place imaginable. Then tell the kids it was a hundred and whomever finds it gets to keep it. An hour later when someone finds the five, say, "Someone else must have hid that. My hundred is still out there."
The remaining 25 people you can’t stand to spend Super Bowl Sunday with will be out on the Saturday before the game. They’re written, but much like the NFL, we insist on two weeks between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. We at ClayNation want to prolong your anticipation for as long as possible. Please, someone plan on wearing headphones to a party. Until Saturday ...
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Good one, Gambit!
