Halftime Blog: Paul McCartney’s Nipple

Haven’t seen it yet. Thank goodness.

And what’s up with the giant video screen floor things? Weird.

At least McCartney’s playing entire songs (so far). Reminds me of the U2 show in 2002. Mmm… good times. It’s a lot better than the medley-fest they usually give us.

Hey–he’s playing a Guns ‘N Roses song! (ha-ha, stole a joke from Abby). Actually, it would be hilarious if Axl Rose came out for a duet (yet another joke stolen from my wife–maybe I should give her the laptop).

Hey–everyone whip out your lighters (um, pen lights?) at the exact same moment. Ah, so much for spontanaity (thanks a lot Janet!).

Ah, scandalless. Was it me, or did McCartney’s backing bass and guitar players look like the Foreman brothers from Switchfoot?

Now I’m Watching the Super Thingy

So the live local music is over and I’m watching the big crazy Super Thingy. I’m also surfing on the laptop (go wifi!), which makes the game a lot more interesting because I only have to look up when something cool happens (though as we learned last year, that means you can miss something R-rated).

I’m not much of a football fan, though I can enjoy a game when cool stuff happens. Haven’t seen much cool stuff yet.

I’m more into the commercials at this point. I’m liking the Pepsi/iTunes commercials. Those are fun and creative. I also like the In-Action Man commercial, featuring Mama’s Boy–of course it’s not very effective, just good for laughs (who was that for? Oh yeah, Degree deodorant).

Hey, touchdown. Tie game.

I’d also like to go on record as saying that car commercials are stupid. I’ve seen the Cadillac “Bang” commercial and the new Honda truck commercial (that’s how you introduce a new truck? LAME.). Too bad Lincoln dropped their lusty priest commercial–that was at least funny. (UPDATE: Ooh, the convertible Mustang commercial was pretty good. The Fargo music was nice.)

And where’s the good blogging about the game (or the commercials)? AdFreak has some interesting “live” blogging going on, but I haven’t seen much else. I must read the wrong blogs. (the presidential election had a lot better blogging going on).

U.S. General: “Shooting people is fun.”

Unbelievable:

“Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.” -Lt. Gen James Mattis, who commanded Marine expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq. (CNN, Feb. 3, 2005)

They talk of Mattis’ bravery and experience and how he speaks with incredible candor and is only being honest about the realities of war. Okay, sure, but “it’s fun to shoot people”? I played with G.I. Joe’s as a kid and I like playing war games (pyeu-pyeu!), but there’s a giant mental leap you need to make when you’re shooting real people. I’m sure that’s not easy with all the stress of the military, but it just plain frightens me to see military personnel this giddy about killing people.

Smog in Minnesota?

We’ve been having air quality alerts in the Twin Cities for the past several days. I don’t entirely understand it, but it has something to do with the weather not blowing our smog away like it usually does. Something to do with the temperature, the wind, etc.

So let me get this straight: The air quality in the Twin Cities is normally so bad that we’d be having pollution warnings all the time? Our only saving grace is that the weather blows our dangerous, polluted air somewhere else? Yikes.

There can only be so much diffusion of polluted air to “somewhere” else before we’re all staying indoors. Seems to me we should be thinking about ways to cut down on the pollution, rather than just hoping the weather will save our neck.

And Then I found $5

The actual five dollar bill I found. Dirty, huh?It was something sick like 45 degrees this afternoon when Abby got home from work, so we harnessed up the dog and went for a walk. And then I found $5.

Seriously. It was lying in a puddle in the middle of Dunlop Street (or is it Avenue? or Road? I dunno) . Slightly torn, completely soaked, but still $5.

Natural vs. Supernatural

I loved this bit from a Philip Yancey interview on a U2 fan site, of all places:

“I tend to think that we humans are the only creatures in the universe concerned with what’s natural and what’s supernatural, what’s miracle and what’s not. From God’s perspective there is no ‘natural’ or ‘supernatural.’ Everything that happens is an outgrowth of what God set in motion. C. S. Lewis has a great passage where he describes miracles as ‘speeded-up ordinaries.’ When Jesus converted water into wine, he merely speeded up the process that has long been occurring, of rain and sun making seeds sprout and turn into vines that bear fruit that ferment and create wine. All of life is, in that point of view, a ‘slow-motion miracle.’ I like that. We keep yearning for the supernatural. I can barely handle the natural.”