NFL Miscellany
I've had football on in the background as I've tended to various and sundry tasks today, and from that experience, I am prepared to draw three entirely separate conclusions:
1. The more I know about football, apparently, the less I know. Predicting winners against the spread seems to be a virtual impossibility for me. It's gotten so bad, in fact, that I'm thinking about pulling the old reverso next week: pick the winners as I think they'll happen, and then reverse each of my picks. Yes, it's gotten to that point.
2. There's a VISA commercial with Tom Brady and his linemen, who follow him everywhere. When he asks why, one of them replies that they're not linemen, but in fact "figurative metaphors," who represent the 5 layers of VISA security. Okay, kind of clever, but wait a sec. "Figurative metaphors" is redundant--all metaphors are figurative.
3. Finally, when Jimmy Smith caught an overtime TD pass in the Jaguars' victory over the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets, I had to listen to three different sets of announcers wax enthusiastic over the "timeless," "ageless," "old man" that was Smith. Smith's age? Yeah, it's the same as mine. I've never really been one of those people who worried too much about passing the age of my sports idols, mostly because I never imagined myself playing. But still. Old man? Ugh.
It's clearly getting to the point where even I don't want to watch football with me. That is all.
Comments
actually there are non-figurative metaphors. think about it... what are they, and why do they exist? They rarely pop up though because it is very hard for socialized people to think in that way, but sometimes they pop up in scientific and technical communication and they are found in the arts.
Posted by: jeremy hunsinger | September 26, 2005 2:33 PM
Ah, that play was glorious! Nice audible by Leftwich.
I watch football with the sound off so I don't have to hear the sorry announcers say "As we were saying to the coach on Friday..." 3426723 times. Or Madden and Michaels having a conversation with their guests while the game unfolds.
Posted by: cbd | September 26, 2005 5:32 PM
Fair enough, Jeremy...Nietzsche was probably rolling in his grave to see me write that...but I will stand by the fact that the commercial writers were being unnecessarily redundant. And I saw the ad another 8 times yesterday, I think...
Posted by: collin | September 27, 2005 9:25 AM
I think in this case the commercial writers were just being literalist where figurative means in the form of a human figure. if they had say a bankvault there, they probably would not have used the word figurative.
Posted by: jeremy hunsinger | September 27, 2005 1:22 PM
My guess is that it's an English major/linguist who has sole his/her soul and threw that in as an inside joke: "See, look, I'm making tons of money wriing lame TV ads!!"
And that lineman is Purdue alum Matt Light. Great player as a Boiler and in the NFL....
Posted by: Chuck | September 27, 2005 8:33 PM
But even with the presence of at least one Purdue alum in the advertisement (another Purdue grad plays on the Pats' offensive line), I'm getting sick of it, too.
Man, I need to be more attentive to typos in my blog comments.
Posted by: Chuck | September 27, 2005 8:36 PM