Katy Perry, For The Win

"You just gotta ignite..., the light..., and let..., it shine..., just own..., the night..., like the Fourth of July..." -Katy Perry- (Firework)

"I am high off life right now!!!" -Veronica Soliz-

"Great game!  My honey's team won!" -Crystal Maiorka-



Good evening boys and girls.  Although the football season just recently came to an end (for the next seven months), we still have a lot to cover here tonight.  The addict (degenerate) that I am, I currently have 'Southwest Signing Day '15' on the t.v. beside me as I type this.  I'll be switching to Bruins @ Rangers on the NBC Sports Network in just over an hour.  Yes, we have a lot to cover tonight...

The Super Bowl is going to be the main topic here tonight, and we're going to begin with the halftime show...

For starters, I want to personally congratulate Katy Perry for CRUSHING the halftime show. Different people are obviously going to have various tastes in music, but Katy made the halftime show exactly what I think it should be.  Katy turned halftime into a spectacle, and with the various performers and dancers and and stage transformations and costume changes and fireworks, and, and, and...  Amazing job Katy!  I've read in several places where people really liked Missy Elliott, with some saying that they liked her more than Katy Perry.  I'm sure that there are some Lenny Kravitz fans out there also.  My thing is that Katy Perry was the one who was invited to do the show, and that Missy (and Lenny) wouldn't have been there without her blessing.  I think that the performance was great as a whole, and that Katy (or whoever she put in place to help her choreograph it) did an outstanding job.  I might not be Katy's target audience (although I have quoted her 'Firework' lyrics here before - I like the positive, encouraging message of the song), but I definitely admire her energy, and I was also impressed with her College GameDay appearance in Oxford this season prior to the Alabama/Ole Miss game.  I mean, she showed up with drinks for the other members on the set.  In a word, Katy's just..., cool.  Thank you for a great halftime Katy - awesome job!

With all of that being said, I'm sure that most of you know that I'm a huge football fan, and that I'll have this huge hole in my world for the next seven months.  However, I did have a successful end to this season as a prognosticator (and I can't let myself go too far before saying this, because Brittany's photo ties right in with Katy's "firework" theme)...

With Brittany's good karma leading the way, I went 6-0 down the stretch in the conference championship games and the Super Bowl (against the spread and the totals).  This brought my final tally to 75-77-2 for the football season.  Joey finished 5-1 down the stretch, his only miss being picking the 'under' on the Super Bowl, and his final total for the season was 70-79-5.  A huge shoutout to Joey for giving me his picks here for the whole football season (it really is A LOT of picks), and my sincere appreciation also goes out to Brittany and all of my other friends who let me use their photographs so that you weren't subjected to seeing my face week after week leading into my picks...  ;)  And yes, I'm proud to say that stealing from the lives of my friends will continue to be a running theme here in my little blog...

Speaking of my friends (and the Super Bowl), I was proud to have picked a final score of 34-23 Patriots in a game that ended up 28-24 Pats.  However, my friend Stephanie picked the EXACT FINAL SCORE for a contest that was sponsored by a local wings place.  Unfortunately, the restaurant had over sixty winners (this was probably at more than one location - I'm not sure), and Steph didn't receive the $1,000.00 prize for nailing the score (or any part of that).  I thought at the least they could have given everyone gift certificates if they weren't going to split the prize evenly, but I still wanted to give Steph the credit that she deserves.  When she played basketball for me (yes, 100 years ago), among her other good qualities, Stephanie would stand her ground in front of ANYONE to take a charge...  :)  Keep your head up Steph, and outstanding prediction!

Veronica...  :)  Oh, if I only had the time and energy to retype the whole facebook status that she entered after her quote above.  Veronica issued a statement on the Patriots and how excited she was that would have made one of Rob's blog entries proud...  :)  Veronica is one of the few Patriots fans that I know here in Texas, and she posts more in support of them than anyone I know, my friends in New England included.  Courtesy of her sister (and my friend) Valerie, this gem of a rice krispy treat was at their Super Bowl Party...

Awesome, huh?  :)  And by now, y'all know what the result was hours later...

Now if I was a petty person, I might start whining and crying about why I wasn't invited to this party.  However, I'm instead going to shed tears over why my friend Crystal didn't invite me to ARIZONA...  Leading up to the Super Bowl, I was seeing Crystal's posts and photos from the Grand Canyon State, and I was assuming that she went for the game.  However, not only is Crystal's favorite guy a Patriots fan (she's slowly being brainwashed to convert from her Cowboys allegiance she says), but they LIVE in Arizona currently...

This is the rare Super Bowl photo of the jets buzzing your neighborhood (also notice the seemingly spooked bird in the upper left corner of the shot).  And this would be the postgame cheer...

Pretty sweet...  :)  So I wasn't invited to San Marcos, and I wasn't invited to Glendale, and I wasn't invited to the Alps either...

This breathtaker comes to us from Germany, courtesy of my friend Candice (who I also know from San Marcos, America).  So, no San Marcos, no Glendale, no Germany, and no New Hampshire...

Here we have a candid photo from my high school classmate Tina (pictured front and center), a genuine shot from New England.  I assume that this picture was taken right after the interception at the goal line.  Although I picked the Patriots to win the game, my expression most closely resembled that of the guy in the blue Pats windbreaker, as I was STUNNED that the Seahawks threw in that situation (a sentiment that was shared by several of my New England friends based on their 'likes' of my little postgame facebook diatribe)...  :)

While you're surely feeling pity for me in that none of these fine people invited me to join their festivities, and that no one invited me to watch the game in Las Vegas, I was PLENTY BUSY..., tracking my prop bets...  :P  The final damage was that I reclaimed $46.66 of the $60.00 that I bet on the game (yes, I bet another $10.00 after I was finished with you fine folks).  The bets that I cashed were Pats (-1 1/2) parlayed w/over (47.5), Pats moneyline, Edelman over 100 yds. receiving, Brady over 30 completions, Brady over 300 yds. passing, Brady 4+ T.D. passes, Brady 2 picks, Amendola scoring a T.D., Wilson 2 T.D. passes, and YES to a 2nd half lead change.  I hit 10 out of 56 bets, and lost just under $14.00...  Gotta love underdog prop betting...  Brady throwing 4 T.D. passes paid the best, winning $7.00 on a $1.00 bet.  

Before I leave you tonight, I also have a new blog link for you to check out (and this one is already included in my list on the right).  My friends Rachael and Kyle (a couple of SMHS alums) have a started a new business venture, and the link to their blog is https://fishslayer.com/blog  From here you can click 'home' at the top of their page, which brings you to "Your Only Source for Booking Guided Fishing Trips."  The blog (like the business) is in its infancy, so you can pretty much follow along from the start.  I told Rachael yesterday that they're eventually bound to get some hits from poker players reading my blog ("fish slayer")...  I was honestly surprised at how long it took me to make that connection yesterday...  :P  

Katy, thanks again for a great halftime show, and to all of my friends who are Patriots fans, enjoy it, because the Steelers will be back next year!!!  Okay..., congratulations...  ;)  Enjoy the rest of your week and I'll see y'all again this weekend!