IT JUST IS - 02.16.2022
February 16, 2022
Good Wednesday morning. I'm author Richard V. Rupp, writing from Burbank, California. Welcome to RUPP'S NOTES/FBI SPECIAL AGENT HARTMANN SERIES posts.
My RAMS did it!!! They are the Super Bowl LVI champs. I watched the game with my sons Matt & Brian and my grandson Ryan who wore his Aaron Donald jersey. There was a lot of yelling "Coooooooop" during the afternoon. My heart rate kept going up and down as the game progressed. The Rams were ahead 13-10 at halftime, but that didn't last long, with the Bengals scoring a 75-yard touchdown pass on the 1st play of the second half. Then Stafford's second interception gave the Bengals a 20-13 lead. I was biting my nails at the end of the final quarter. With just a few minutes to go, the Coooooop caught an unbelievable touchdown pass with 1.25 seconds left. Coooop made 8 catches for 92 yards and 2 touchdowns. The frosting on the cake was a fourth-down sack by the "Donald" after the touchdown that gave the Rams the win. Pheeee.
LA has been hopping because of Super Bowl LVI being played at the new $5-billion SoFi Stadium and the Hollywood crowd buying into the Rams. I watched the cameras move from Jennifer Lopez/Ben Affleck, Prince Harry, Justin Bieber, Charlize Theron, Matt Damon, Ellen Degeneres, Tracy Morgan, etc. The weather has been perfect for partying. And, in a Hollywood manner, The Rock got the game started.
Thank god I was watching the game with my grandson, or I would not have understood half the Super Bowl ads. Crypto, Megaverse, and NFTs have taken over. A $7 million ad to have a color-changing QR bouncing across the screen??? Some ads for travel, autos, and entertainment companies suggest getting back to a pre-pandemic normal. Planet Fitness had one showing Lindsay Lohan putting her party days behind her. Names known to an old-timer like me such as Matthew McConaughey, Paul Rudd, Salma Hayek, and good old Arnold Schwarzenegger hocked such exciting products as mayonnaise. Then there was the Alexa mind reader ad with Scarlett Johansson and her husband Colin Jost that got me laughing. Yes, the concept of privacy is gone in the digital world. "Ordering mouthwash" and "Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. . ."
Brian got a great Disney gig on Monday, lighting up Rams players at Disneyland as they were interviewed by various news networks from around the world. He kept sending me texts – "Watch CNN". . . "Watch ESPN". . .
This afternoon there will be a parade for the Rams, ending at the LA Memorial Coliseum. A rally will be held in the plaza outside the stadium. This brings back memories as Super Bowl I was held at the Coliseum in 1967. The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, and the halftime show featured Al Hirt playing the trumpet.
I'm sure the NFL and Olympic Committee had some marketing campaign in mind when they decided to use Roman Numerals to designate specific games. But they don't fit in well with the digital world. And, I must admit, they are getting to the point where they are confusing many of us. Why not simplify things for us and use the 56th Super Bowl?
I hate to see food go to waste, so for the moment, I'm on a beef dip sandwich, guacamole, and onion dip with chips diet. Unfortunately, in the excitement of the game, I forgot to put the guacamole out for my guests. So I'm eating a lot of leftovers from my hosting of the Super Bowl. Probably, not that healthy.
As I'm writing this newsletter and right up to the start of the Super Bowl, I have been watching the Olympics curling matches. The USA curling teams are not doing that great, but I'll watch any team. I noticed that NBC inserts more commercials when a USA team is in the event in watching the matches. I've really gotten into this sport. Maybe too much.
Thank you, Scotts, for coming up with curling and producing the granite stones and the rules used in the game. It does seem to be complicated and has a lot of strange terminologies.
For some reason, I got caught up trying to figure out how the term "end" was arrived at for a playing period. My research came to a conclusion that "it just is." It's like an inning in baseball or cricket. My research into "inning" arrived at the same conclusion. It just is!
I should follow Tiny Buddha's advice more often – "It just is. It is the way it's supposed to be. All the over-analysis, overthinking, overplanning, over labeling – all of that doesn't accomplish anything." Darn, if that's true, I'd be out of a job.
I did find this out about the stones used in Bejing. They are supplied by the Olympics and do not belong to the teams. Each stone has a handle attached that carries a pair of green and red lights on each side, which acts as sensors. The sensors track whether athletes release the stone before it reaches the first red hog line. A green light ensures that curling stones have been released correctly and before reaching the first hog line. A red light indicates an athlete has failed to release the stone at the correct time. BUT, as you may have noticed, the sensors are not working and have been turned off. I wonder if they were "Made in China?"
A set of stones is numbered 1 to 8, and each has its own characteristics. For this reason, each team is keeping a record of how they move on the ice. This record-keeping apparently is the job of the team's alternative player, who uses binoculars to watch the stones thrown by other teams. Based on what they determine (slow running, curls to the left, etc.), the order of throwing a specific set of stones will be established. Stones that act erratically are thrown in the early ends.
Now you know as much as I do about curling stones.
Yes, I'm spending too much time researching this subject, and I doubt if curling will ever be used in one of my novels.
Speaking of my novels. DEATH & TAXES and DEATH ON THE HIGH SEAS are available at Amazon.com, or you can go to my website (www.richardvrupp.com) and click on WORKS.
Until next week.
Cheers,
Richard V. Rupp, Author
Website – www.richardvrupp.com
Email – rupprisk@gmail.com
Copyright©2021 by Richard V. Rupp