February 4 - Australia: Cairns, Queensland
The Super Bowl - LIVE!
We slept in a bit today, but the alarm went off at 8:00AM as Jon was hoping for Super Bowl pre-game. There was no pre-game, but the Super Bowl was scheduled to be shown at 9:00AM.
So Jon was happily ensconced on the couch, watching the Rams and the Patriots fight it out. While the football came through uninterrupted, none of the commercials were broadcast. That's a drag, because that's half the fun of watching the game. I miss my friends, too. At home, each year we have an annual "Host a Super Bowl Party At Someone Else's Apartment" Party. It started many years ago when most of us lived in studio apartments. So Jon and Vinny decided that Sharon's massive apartment was perfect to watch the Super Bowl. Sharon - who is British - was going out of town for the weekend and wouldn't be back until sometime during the game. But she game them the keys and showed up later. We all had a lovely time and it was the start of a great tradition. The next year, Sharon decided that the party would be in our newly acquired one-bedroom apartment and she sent out the invitations accordingly. The year after, Jon and I decided that Vinny would host it, and we made sure that every showed up. Somehow, Vinny got sucked into hosting it for two years in a row, then - last year - he announced that the party would be held at Yoon and Eddie's. I wonder who hosted it this year. I imagine that it's fallen apart, because Vinny moved to Westchester (God knows why) and we've been gone. Vinny and Jon were always the motivators when it came to the Super Bowl. But suddenly I miss sitting around with my friends and laughing at the silly commercials. Funny how people chat during the game but absolute silence is required during the commercials.
While Jon watched the game, I went to the grocery store and then over to the management office to pay our rent. When I returned, John (the manager) was at our place changing light bulbs for us. So we chatted for a while and he exclaimed at the exorbitant prices of Super Bowl tickets. Then, I spent the rest of the afternoon running errands: called the phone company, returned library books, got Jon's BCD fixed, and stopped by an ATM.
Laptop Issues
I also drove around for a while looking for computer repair places. Yesterday morning, I busted our USB port by accidentally breaking off one of the pins. NOT a good thing. And if it's connected to the motherboard, then it's going to cost a shitload to fix. This is really bad, because the USB port is how we download from our camera and upload to our MP3 players. Very, very bad. "Northern Circuits" told me they'd open it up and look at it, but it will take 3-5 days of turnaround. We feel lost without the laptop.
DSDD
By the time I got home, it was 11:30 and Jon was making pizzas for lunch. I had to be at DSDD at 1:00 to help someone do a makeup confined water session. After Jon was done with the pizzas, I threw together a chicken and veggie casserole for dinner and inhaled some pieces of pizza for lunch. I ran out the door when the Super Bowl had four minutes to go in the fourth quarter and the score was 17-10. By the time I got to the DSDD, David was walking in and said, "What are you doing here?!?! The score's tied!!!". So everyone told me to go home because they had plenty of people to help with the makeup. I didn't wait for them to change their minds and I bolted out the door, hoping to make it home for overtime. When I got there, Jon told me about the field goal and I was so bummed that I'd missed it.
The funny thing is that we entered a Super Bowl pool that my cousin Marci put together. (No - she's not a bookie! Just a Rams fan.) She emailed us the spreadsheet with the pool selections, which we saved on the laptop. Of course, the laptop is now in the shop so we have no idea if we won anything!
Our Exciting Life at Home
Later, Jon decided to take the truck and clock last night's run, and I decided to take a nap. I woke up after an hour or so, just in time to put the casserole in for dinner. Jon was laying on the couch, bemoaning the fact that our main form of entertainment - the laptop - is gone. A few minutes later, he began to nod off - all bent up on our tiny two-seater couch. So I talked him into going upstairs for a nap and I sat down to study.
We ate the chicken casserole and watched the Simpsons (of course). Then we settled in to study and to watch "The Jackal" on TV. Australian television has entirely too many commercials, so we flipped between The Jackal and some really bad Steven Segal movie. I was excited because "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - one of my favorite shows and I'm not ashamed to admit it - was on at 10:40. But by 10:30 I was fading fast and losing patience with all the commercials. So we went upstairs to go to bed.