A Super Bowl experiment
04 Feb 2009, Posted by Jacob Wolff in Backpages, Jacob Wolff, 3 Comments
I have absolutely no intention of watching the Super Bowl this year. This may seem like blasphemy coming from the mouth of a 21-year old male, but it’s true. For one, I’m really not that a big of a football fan (baseball is my game, go Cubs!). But mainly, I just have too much work. Sad, I know, but it’s the truth.
So if I’m not going to watch the game, I figured I’d at least make a social experiment out of it. My goal: see just how long I can go without finding out who won the game. I predict I won’t even make it to the end of the night, but if I make it a day, I’ll consider that an accomplishment:
SUNDAY
2:10 p.m.: I will start off this challenge by heading over to the library. What with a men’s home basketball game and Super Bowl preparations, I should have the place pretty much to myself. I figure this is the best place to hunker down and avoid sports for a bit.
6:30 p.m.: Well, the game should be starting now. I think I’m pretty safe in the library, only the nerdiest of nerds would be here during the Super Bowl (myself excluded of course).
6:58 p.m.: Almost 30 minutes into the game, and I’m about to leave the library. I’m only now realizing how hard this actually may be. I’ll have to stay off Facebook for fear of seeing a rogue status update. I definitely can’t look at any sports sites, or pretty much any Web sites for that matter (no yahoo, CNN, etc.) Essentially, I’m limited to the basic Google homepage and actually doing homework, not fun at all.
7:50 p.m.: It must be well into the game now. I made it back to my dorm, and so far so good. I kind of like this actually. One of the benefits of 50 percent of Americans simultaneously sitting in front of their T.V. screens is that there are no lines anywhere. I didn’t have to wait at all for a washer/ dryer (on a Sunday night!), and the lack of lines in the Great Hall made me feel like I had my own personal cook staff. I avoided The Loop for fear of seeing all those TV screens, but totally forgot about the big screen projector in the Great Hall. I managed to hum the theme song from “Doug” and didn’t catch anything about the game (for some odd reason that’s my humming song of choice).
9:00 p.m.: I think the game is still going on, but I can’t be sure. This is a lot harder than I thought. There is a watch party in the common room down the hall, and I can hear a lot of screaming. When I ran to the bathroom, I did overhear someone tell another person the score, but I don’t know which team is winning, so I’m still in the clear.
11:15 p.m.: The game must be over, my roommate just came back to the room, and I managed to cut him off as he was starting to talk excitedly about the game. Fortunately, he seems to be nice enough not to mess around with me. I can’t the say the same thing about my other friends (I’m sure they’d screw with me), so I’ll be avoiding them until further notice.
MONDAY
11:20 a.m.: So I just woke up and flipped open my computer, and I’m quickly beginning to realize I really can’t go on any sites at all. I’m even avoiding the Google homepage for fear that one of their “Google” designs may have incorporated the winner.
1:15 p.m.: My one and only class today. I’ve tried to sit myself as far away from guys as possible (I know that just a dirty rotten stereotype, but desperate times call for desperate measures). As a result, I find myself in hostile sorority girl territory (I think I took someone’s seat).
1:36 p.m.: Extremely close call. The professor just started to talk about the Super Bowl in class. I literally jumped out of my seat and started to nonchalantly walk out of the room, humming away. But I could hear enough to know he had stopped. Too close.
4:30 p.m.: I’m heading off to Southpoint Mall to get a haircut. This has absolutely nothing to do with my Super Bowl experiment, but frankly, I really needed a haircut.
6:35 p.m.: The woman cutting my hair almost spilled the beans, but I survived. Also, watch out ladies, there’s a new shorter-haired Jacob in town, so be ready.
7:32 p.m.: It’s over. I’m sitting on the L2 floor of Perkins and I just overheard two guys talking about “how awesome the Steelers’ win was last night.” I gave them a sad look, but they must just think I’m a Cardinals fan. That was really anticlimatic. I was sorta hoping Ben Roethlisberger would bust into the room and scream “We won, YEEEEAAAAH” when the time came for me to find out who won. At the very least, a phone call would have been nice…
So that’s it. I didn’t even make it 24 hours. I really did my best too. I just read up on the game, and apparently it was a pretty good one. Oh well… I got some solid work done yesterday. The Super Bowl is just too big of a deal to avoid. Had I made it past the first day, I might have had a fighting chance of making this go for a while. But alas, no matter how I’d love to escape the commercial-commodity that is the world biggest sports event, I just couldn’t hide from the big bad Super Bowl.
Them haters
03 Feb 2009, Posted by Braden Hendricks in Backpages, Braden Hendricks, 0 Comments
Everyone hates a winner. Go anywhere in the country and you’re liable to run into legions of anti-Yankees, anti-Cowboys and anti- Patriots fans. When a team becomes dominant, all of the motley collection of fanbases for all the other teams unite to spew a collective hatred on that one team, it happens time and time again.
Obviously, where I’m headed here is the phenomenon of Duke haters I run into everywhere I go. Since the late 80’s Duke has been a powerhouse, but starting with the back-t0-back national championships Duke pretty much ran the table in the ACC. Even though the last couple of seasons were disappointments, all of the haters that formed over the last decade haven’t lost focus on their favorite past-time.
Case in point, I’m currently in Los Angeles and I have a habit of wearing ultra-cool and comfortable grey Duke hoodie when I’m out and about. On a few occasions now, several strangers have flat out shouted at me “Duke sucks!” or “Go UNC!” It doesn’t matter the race, age, height or anything else—except gender: all of them were guys—I couldn’t believe the randomness of the people spitting their hate at me. These comments really picked up when Duke lost to Wake Forest, with the catcalls changing to “Go Wake!”
If that isn’t enough, adding insult to injury are the haters I see being paid to spout their nonsense. Take this guy here. This loser sits around and gets paid by Yahoo to hate on our ballers and Dickie V. This hater thing is pandemic. From Myspace to Facebook there are groups all over the web dedicated to our demise.
Oh well. I’m not trying to start a pity party, and I wouldn’t want one. All of this opposition and adversity is, of course, vindication of Duke’s greatness, but it’s something more—motivation. Today’s Duke players should be proud of their feat of reaching number one this season, but they should also be looking back on the past at all the other number one squads to have played under Coach K. That’s not to say they should feel pressured, but they should draw on the past glory of the jerseys they now wear, and ignore all nay-sayers.
As for rest, they can spit their hate and talk their trash. I don’t care where you’re from, North Carolina, Los Angeles… wherever. I say, bring it on.
Why Dick Brodhead is a GENIUS
30 Jan 2009, Posted by Ade Sawyer in Ade Sawyer, Backpages, 0 Comments
You might remember that last summer President Richard Brodhead ( or Dicky B as he’s known in my head) signed on to the Amethyst Initiative; a group of college and university presidents which hopes to encourage debate on the drinking age. Naturally, all of us at the Chronicle loved it. And, of course, there were haters.
As it turns out though, Dicky B wasn’t just acknowledging the futility of the current law. He was also preparing us for life. You’re skeptical? I’ll prove it.
Enter Obama. On Wednesday, after the House passed the stimulus bill, President Barack Obama (hold on, savor that…President…Obama…) invited congressional leaders to the White House for drinks. There’s a great article on Slate.com that talks about the virtues of presidential drinking. Here’s a Cliffnotes version:
- This represents a move toward bipartisanism because drinking loosens people up so they can relax and stop being so adversarial.
- George W. Bush, due to alcoholism in earlier life, didn’t drink in the White House. Yet another reason why he was America’s Debbie Downer.
- The founding fathers liked to drink.
- A lot of presidents liked to drink.
- FDR loved to drink.
- Nixon liked to drink too, but he had an alcohol problem (check clip 4, “Fiercest Adversary”).
- Congresspeople used to love drinking, but they’re scared to drink now because they’re afraid they’ll get photographed. Instead they just exercise a lot.
- Drinking, although fun, won’t cure all of Congress’ partisan ills.
- Sidebar: There’s this thing for drunk-emailers called Mail Goggles.
While I have to reluctantly admit that drinking can’t make everything better…at least not long-term, it’s worth thinking about the fact that drinking is both a cause and a result of the social familiarity that can make it much easier for people to work together. Duke students, the CCI committee and Dicky B have been clear on the power of alcohol as a social lubricant for some time. Genius. Washington is just rediscovering it.
Duke is developing the next generation of people who will solve the world’s problems. Or make tons of money off of them (I-Bankers…). Either way we’re going to have to deal with people, and it can’t hurt to grease the wheels a little. Listen to Dicky B and the president. They know what they’re doing.
Get some practice this weekend! (If you’re of age of course. Anything else is illegal.)
Teacher and friend
30 Jan 2009, Posted by Letter to the Editor in Backpages, Exclusive guest commentary, 0 Comments
The following is the unabridged version of a guest commentary published in today’s paper:
I was surprised and saddened to learn of the death of my teacher and friend Edward P. Mahoney, professor emeritus of philosophy and a Catholic priest in the Raleigh Diocese, who passed away Jan. 8. Only a month ago, his health, although poor, appeared stable. I expected to see him upon my return in late January to continue the trivial but cathartic task of sorting through his old files. Although one can hardly call the death of a chronically-ill 76 year-old unexpected, it was nonetheless untimely.
We had been sorting for the last few years, trying to organize his massive lifetime collection of photocopied manuscripts, research notes, personal correspondence and academic trash. Progress was slow and next to meaningless, but it was a good excuse to spend time together. Even as his mind deteriorated, Mahoney continued to educate in these sessions as he reviewed his unique insights into medieval philosophy and reflected on his own life and career, offering me free advice along the way. (more…)