Like my childhood… sort of

What’s weirder?

Seeing top-ranked Connecticut lose by 19 points to Creighton last night…

or realizing that this was a Big East conference game?

(Creighton University, btw, is in Omaha, Nebraska.)

This is one week after I witnessed Syracuse take down 10th-ranked North Carolina…

in ACC game played at something called the JWA Wireless Dome.

Philadelphia Weekend

I’ve never been so deliriously happy to see my favored teams lose two games in a row as I was this weekend while visiting the City of Brotherly Love.

I was in Philadelphia with my son, among other things seeing the Penn Quakers in action on the basketball court and lacrosse field. We watched Penn fall to Georgetown in lacrosse (two highly-rated teams there) and then lose to Brown in basketball (two not highly-rated teams, but still fun to watch).

The draw wasn’t the teams; it was the venues.

Certainly a discussion on an upcoming episode of Math and Musings, two legendary buildings on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania are synonymous with college athletics themselves: Franklin Field, serving Saturday as the home of Penn’s lacrosse team, and the Palestra, home to Quaker basketball.

The latter is, well, pretty much what Naismith had in mind.

Seeing a game at the Palestra was a pilgrimage, as close to a religious experience as a non-theist can get.

Double bonus was getting to see a game at Franklin Field. That one’s actually older than the Palestra and almost older than basketball itself. The stadium was built in 1895 and is famously the host of the Penn Relays, the oldest and largest track and field competition in the U.S. (That one goes back to 1895 as well.) It was a little chilly sitting in the stands for Saturday’s game and I’m not the world’s biggest lacrosse fan, but somehow I turned into one and thought nothing of the cold in that magical arena.

Must’ve been the Brotherly Love.

Oh, I ran up the Rocky steps too. But that one’s actually on the other side of town.

Stars aligned on this one

I think Valentine’s Day is a pretty overrated holiday, especially for those on the north side of 27 or so.

But this particular Valentine’s Day closes out a string of days not likely to be repeated any time soon.

Saturday, February 10… Lunar New Year.

Sunday, February 11… Super Bowl.

Monday, February 12… Lincoln’s Birthday.

Tuesday, February 13… Mardi Gras.

Wednesday, February 14… Valentine’s Day.

I should note that today is also Ash Wednesday, but come on, if I’m giving Valentine’s Day about a C-Tier rating Ash Wednesday is down there with brussel sprouts.

Another snow day tomorrow, anyone?

The truism here is: Dad’s usually right

The title of this post was to be “Just like the first time.”

The first Super Bowl I watched with genuine interest was January 28, 1990… Super Bowl XXIV. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Denver Broncos that day to repeat as Super Bowl champions.

The final score was 55-10. Dad said championship games aren’t usually this one-sided.

Dad was right. Most games are like the one last night, which pitted said 49ers against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Most of the game it looked as though San Francisco would win, and I would have had a nice sappy footnote to put on the victory.

Alas it was Kansas City who came out on top, and the Chiefs now call themselves back-to-back champs.

Though I had no actual interest in the result I found myself pulling for the 49ers, and the heart-wrenching way they lost kind of made me wish the game had ended 55-10.

But most championship games usually aren’t so one-sided.

Dad’s usually right about these things.

Never look a day off in the mouth

Singapore, Bhutan, Brunei, Malaysia… Loudoun County, Virginia. These are places celebrating Lunar New Year today. Actually it’s only Lunar New Year’s Eve here, as Lunar New Year proper falls on our calendar’s 10th of February. But those other countries are also like 14 hours ahead of us in time zones so I guess it balances out.

Point is, we’ve got the day off today, and one never looks a day off in the mouth.

And for a greater recitation of these details, check out today’s episode of Math and Musings.

500 down

Today’s math class bellringer: How many years is 500 months?

Bonus: What was the date 500 months ago?

If you can’t answer either of these questions you’ll have to repeat the first decade of this blog.

Curb still bringing it

I’d been looking forward to Season 12 of Curb Your Enthusiasm since the moment Season 11 ended fourteen months ago.

I knew it’d be good, and it was.

Here’s an example, from last night’s premiere, of why Curb is both topical and timeless: in the same episode I can get a modern-day crack about “DTM” (doing too much), then minutes later get a centuries-old Yiddish insult, “farbissiner.”

My goal today is to squeeze both of those into conversation.