Halftime in America?

OK, there's a fair amount of discussion about the Halftime in America spot that ran during the Super Bowl.  I like Eastwood, and the message was OK, if rather simplistic, as a 'rally the country' cheer - but we're in so doggone deep, that feel-good nostalgia, changing the quarterback (a must!), and even all the advice that this blog, Thunder Tales, and Todd the Pastor Blogger can give, don't much mitigate the fact that it's not really halftime - more like 4th quarter, 4th and 30, down by a TD, with five seconds on the clock.  Leon Lett has the ball...

Pale Rider, we've been throgh a lot of good and bad, but things are sure looking ugly.

• OK, I'll try to rest the analogies and metaphors for a moment.
• I gotta get over to Carter Bloodcare this weekend - they called me this week, asked if I could drop by.  I'm already due my gallon pin from last time (but they were out) - will never catch up to Todd the Pastor, who I believe has drained 9 more gallons than me.

• When I picked up daughter and middle son last weekend, their mom sent a [home-made] sweet potato (I almost included an 'e', Dan Quayle style) pie.  It was delicious.
• Daughter and I watched a cute movie the other night: Gunless, about an old west gunslinger dude who survives a lynching attempt and ends up in Canada, eh.  He is affronted by a local blacksmith, whom he subsequently calls to a duel, but the man has no sidearm.  So, for a good part of the movie, our gunslinger sets about acquiring a sidearm (a Colt Paterson cartridge conversion - which BTW would not be my choice for a cartridge conversion as the frame design is inherently weak), in need of repairs. The blacksmith forges a hammer repair, but in the end the planned shootout goes awry, and both men survive.

• The movie featured nary a curse word, substituted instead with 'minced oaths' or the like, earning points by me since I was watching with Daughter.
• But the bloopers, which ran alongside credits, automatically, let fly several s-words and a couple of f-bombs.  I found that odd.
• Newsflash: Authorities now calling Susan Powell case murder.  Awesome police work, guys!
• Even though it is February, I was hoping for slightly warmer weather - if it gets really cold this weekend, I'll open a bottle of Glühwein, bought from the Kroger clearance rack ($1.79!) last week, and channel my inner Clarence: "...heavy on the cinnamon and light on the cloves. Off with you, me lad, and be lively!".
• I'm flummoxed by all the emails wanting me to learn a new language - if I wanted to do that, I'd have a garage sale and speak Spanish by lunchtime.
• For the first time in ages, I made perfect al dente spaghetti tonight.
• A 46 year old woman is suing New York for $900 trillion.  Yes, $900 trillion.  I say give her an empty Coke bottle and a couple of dollars worth of subway tokens and send her on her way.
• And from the other side of the carbonated drink aisle - this may just be my inner grumpy old man, but did I perceive in Dame Elton's Pepsi commercial an implicit endorsement of the OWS egalitarian ethos "Pepsi for everyone"?  Hey, how about y'all brainless masses actually working for the rewards instead of just demanding them?
• OK, maybe I was reading too much into it.
• Now,how about a sunset beach walk on the beverage third coast?  I didn't get too wrapped up in the Dublin Dr Pepper saga, in which the corporate giant snuffs out the small town independent bottler.  David and Goliath was the general story, was it not?
• As I noted, I didn't read all the articles, but - and please correct me if I get it wrong - I thought I read, more than once, that the Dublin group was in violation of selling its niche product beyond the geographical boundaries in its licensing contract.  Also, that, despite the marketing cachet of being bottled in nostalgic little Dublin, most of the production was outsourced to a Belton bottling plant.

• My sense is that the Dublin group overestimated the David v. Goliath spin. 
• I don't fault them trying to cast themselves as folksy small town producers - it's classic marketing - every mega beer company (AB, Miller-Coors, etc) has several supposedly 'craft brews' in its stable.
• I took Daughter to my parents' house for dinner Sunday afternoon.  Before the football game,  Mom & Dad, Daughter, Sienna and I went for a nice walk, about a mile.  Doesn't seem like much, but it was pretty cool.
• License seen on a car on the drive home yesterday: CZ2DAY.  Carpe Diem wouldn't have fit. 
• As for me, I didn't eat all of the al dente spaghetti - I left room to sieze some of the leftover sweet potato pie.