End of Season

Another NFL season came to an end yesterday with Superbowl 43 and a party for the same at the Reddy residence. There were fewer than 10 adults in attendance, what with folks being away for different reasons - India, Skiing, other parties, etc. The party itself was planned and announced in typical Hari fashion - strictly word-of-mouth with no use of electronic media whatsoever. The plan was to have a potluck dinner after the game with some snacking during the game.

We had gone to the Wild Animal Park in the mid-morning and arrived about 10 minutes after the game had started. Under pressure from the crowd, I setup the 'squares' game and after roping in the missing Kamaths (they arrived shortly before the game ended), we had 10 participants one of whom was SivaP. This is noteworthy because he only stayed for the first half, but managed to win 3 of the 5 available prizes. Geetha who showed up about 2 minutes before the game ended won the other two prizes. The rest of us were left holding the bag.

The game itself had its high and low points with some very dramatic changes of fortune. The Steelers led almost throughout except late in the fourth quarter when Arizona rallied to actually take the lead. Pittsburgh then had a late drive for the winning touchdown. RD, as the sole Steelers supporter, should have been pleased but was more distraught over missing out on one of the prizes when the Steelers came from behind to take the decisive lead. Ads, which are the highlight of Superbowls, were on the whole pretty disappointing. I can recall Hyundai's ad; GoDaddy had its usual nonsense while Pepsi, Sobe and a few others had some mystifying ones. Coke did a couple of their usual fairy tale style spots along with a reprise of their 'Mean Joe Green' ad, but with Polamalu. NBC had more than the usual share of ads promoting their own shows, with several being fairly inane.

Given that we were in the Reddy residence, there was the usual smack talk about 'royalty.' There were gleeful reminders of what was in store for the folks who spilled drinks or caused damage to the custom built toys. In between Hari got a call from Keerthi asking him to measure some photo frames. I was pretty sure that the tape measure was made of platinum - surely it couldn't be steel. There were similar comments about what sort of frames were being ordered. I learned about the following exchange that took place elsewhere: Rd mentioned that on his recent trip to India, he had some 'people' to receive him at the airport - you know the kind that whisks you past customs and immigration. Latha responded - "you mean the kind of people that wait for Keerthi when she arrives in India?" Rd: "No way! Keerthi has people waiting for her at the airport even when she is not arriving." To which Sanjay chimed in, "Yeah, what if she shows up?" I must say I was cracking up over the vision of a couple of guys waiting patiently outside Hyd airport day in and day out....

We even played a few hands of poker, interjected by one of the fastest dinner breaks. It was past 9pm when we left and the fans amongst us were left to ponder the 8 months till the start of next season.