Monday, October 29, 2007

How 'Bout Them Sox?


Well here we are, three years later and another sweep. As shocked as I was that they actually swept the Rockies, (pretty impressive considering at the onset of the series the Rockies had won 21 of their last 22 games, including their sweep of the Diamondbacks,) I must say I was able to enjoy this run to the pennant much more than in 2004. That year it was just a little too surreal. You know, like I kept waiting for them to screw it up. Like every year. Or, at least, every year before 2004. Anyway...

I wasn't always a Red Sox fan. I kind of got assimilated into the Red Sox Nation. That's what happens when you marry someone who was born in Boston, or a suburb thereof, and whose entire family is from there. Resistance is futile? (Gee, haven't I said that before?) Not that I minded that much. I grew up in Wyoming, remember? No pro team close enough to root for. No, not even the Rockies, since they have only been in existance for 11 years, and I moved away 13 years ago. I have a few friends that immediately took up with the Rockies. My only thoughts were, "hmm, nice colors." But I was never that interested in following them. Don't get me wrong, I was glad they got as far as they did. But I have now become a permanent part of the Red Sox Nation, so there was no way I was going to cheer for the Rockies. It seems that's how it happens with the Sox. Did you ever see Fever Pitch? Decent movie, made better by the fact that they actually had to change the ending, since they were in the middle of filming in 2004 when the Sox took the series. At the beginning of the movie the main character talks about how he became one of those pathetic creatures called a Red Sox fan. I love that comment. Because up until '04, that's exactly what we were. (I admit, I had only been a fan for about 7 years at that point, but I find that one year as fan and you're hooked, regardless of how many times they break your heart.) Once a Sox fan, always a Sox fan. Though in the last three years, I'm not so sure that still applies. I've seen a big increase in Sox fans, but only since they won in '04. I wonder what will happen with the posers if the Sox go on another elongated losing streak (hopefully not 84 years long, but still.) Such is the price of championship, I guess.

I will tell you what I didn't like about this year's series. The commercials!! I am so sick and tired of those commercials I fully intend to turn the channel and possibly even throw something at the TV the next time one comes on. I will never buy a Chevy Malibu, probably never go to Taco Bell again (except maybe tomorrow to get my free taco) and if I hadn't already had Verizon as my cell provider for three years, I might seriously rethink my decision on that, too. Ok, the Malibu commercials were funny the first time. Who wouldn't laugh at a bunch of bank robbers running out of the bank and getting in their car just as the police pulled up, only to have the police run right by as if they didn't see the robbers? Or at a woman who jogs straight into the car and flops over the hood, then slides down to the ground and sits there looking around like, did I just do that? I even laughed the first time at the Taco Bell commercial "Big Brother's Rules". But for crying out loud. Do we have to see these things EVERY commercial break. Gag. At least Miller High-Life had the decency to vary their commercials. They may be stupid, but at least you don't see the same one over and over until you want to just rip that delivery guy out of the TV beat him down with your own baseball bat!

The other thing I know I won't do is go and see the new Will Smith movie. It's called "I Am Legend". Have you seen the ads for this? What am I talking about, if you watched any little bit of the World Series, OF COURSE you saw the ads. Well I don't know about you, but the ads scared the crap out of me! It doesn't give you much information, of course, but from what I can gather there is some sort of airborne something or other that kills everyone on the planet (supposedly) except Will Smith's character. The part that bothers me, aside from the horrific thought of that anyway, is that his character at least starts out with a family, a wife and little girl. They show a clip of the little girl sitting in her car seat just tapping her fingers together as children do, completely oblivious to what's going on around her. There's even a clip showing them going through the line and the police or somebody saying "you're not infected" to him and his little girl. And then all of a sudden he's alone. That means something happened to that little girl, and that just kills me. Anymore, anything happening to children bothers me immensely. Ever since my daughter was born. I even try to avoid the news. I'm perfectly happy only knowing a little bit of what's going on in the world around me if it means I get to avoid hearing about some child that got hurt, kidnapped, killed, etc. Part of motherhood, I suppose, but I don't see other mothers avoiding the news like I do. But I digress.

The rest of what is bugging me about that movie is the whole "end of the world sort of" concept. That creeps me out. *shudder* (Maybe because, to an extent, a lot of these things invented by Hollywood are possible.) I couldn't even finish watching The Day After Tomorrow. The ads for it haunted me for days. I thought it would bother me forever if I didn't at least try to watch it. I watched the beginning, and then ended up making my sister tell me what happened to the main characters in the end. I'm satisfied with that, have no need to ever watch the whole thing. I struggled with Deep Impact, I think because it was so generalized. I did better with Armageddon, but that did focus more on specific characters. I hated Independence Day. Maybe it's the mass destruction or loss of innocent lives. I really don't know, but I do know that there's too much of that happening in the real world, I don't need to go to the movies to watch all the possibilities of how all life on our planet could get killed off. Enough! Whatever happened to happily ever after? Oh, incidentally, I saw another ad for Will's movie and he's not alone. There appear to be horrible man-like creatures that are attacking him...

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