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[jay-ell]

You should just celebrate your birthday on a different day. If George Washington and all those guys can move their birthdays just to get a three day weekend, I think all Americans have the same right.

Yeah, I often celebrate my birthday on a different day, especially when it falls during the week. It's just having to celebrate on a different day and then spend my actual birthday participating in something I despise even at the best of times.

I mean, I don't do much for my birthday anyway -- I think birthday parties for grown-ups are stupid -- but I always have dinner with my Mom sometime that week, and Pedro and I usually go out without the kids. And, of course, we have the ten-minute cake-and-candles thing with the kids at home, but only because they love birthdays so much.

I just feel like if you hate cleaning the cat's litterbox or changing the oil in your car, you should not have to do those things on your birthday. And I would rather spend the day scrubbing toilets than watching the super bowl. At least at the end of it, I'd have clean toilets!

Which, come to think of it, is usually the opposite of what happens after Pedro eats his dad's Super Bowl Chili.

[AugustWest]

I am always the same age as the Super Bowl. So I'm XLV this year!

[JorgeFabregas]

? I hate basketball, and besides we totally use ringers - how many pro players are on other teams? One each or something?

Most country's basketball teams are full of professional players. They may not play in the NBA (although many do), but they play in their own country's professional leagues.

[Choop]

the US was actually the last nation to allow pro ballers on their olympic team, and when we did, christ we destroyed the opposition. since '92 though it's kind of gone downhill because what multi-millionaire athlete cares about winning a gold medal when they run the risk of injury - hence potential damage to career and income - and aren't getting paid for it otherwise?

[pmcd9]

The Super Bowl used to fall around my birthday.  It only actually fell directly on my birthday once.  I loved it.  Now they have the 16 game season and bye weeks and wild card games so the game happens much later now.  It's never on my birthday anymore.  So anyway JL, if they implement the longer season the league is contemplating the big game might move off of your birthday.  But for real, don't make Pedro miss a party with his Dad.  That would be a pretty shitty thing to do.

[side_show]

...not want to go to Olive Garden for lunch, but everyone is going to Olive Garden for lunch.

[jay-ell]

The Super Bowl used to fall around my birthday.  It only actually fell directly on my birthday once.  I loved it.  Now they have the 16 game season and bye weeks and wild card games so the game happens much later now.  It's never on my birthday anymore.  So anyway JL, if they implement the longer season the league is contemplating the big game might move off of your birthday.  But for real, don't make Pedro miss a party with his Dad.  That would be a pretty shitty thing to do.

I didn't make him miss it in 2005, and I was bored and miserable all day. Wouldn't it be shitty of him to make me do something that makes me miserable on my birthday? I don't want people to make a big fuss about me; I don't even want to go out and do something fun. I just want to stay home and not watch football.

There are other football games he can watch with his dad that don't fall on my birthday. He doesn't even like football! He hasn't watched a single game all season (except for a few minutes last night, because my football-obsessed brothers-in-law were watching upstairs during my daughter's birthday party).

Would I be a bad wife if I made him come with me while I spent four hours shopping for yarn on his birthday? I don't see how this is different.

Besides, it's a moot point. He's going to do what he's going to do, and as soon as we saw the date of the game, he said, "Sorry you're going to have to miss the Super Bowl this year, babe, but it's your birthday, and I have to take you out someplace nice instead." Will I turn down that kind offer? No I will not. Will I have guilt about it for weeks to come? Yes, yes I will.

[theinevitable]

keith, you are a fool. Saint Louis is cool because it is way smaller than its outlying areas. There is no reason to live in the city unless you are awesome. or, like, a grizzly old working class dude who smokes cigars at bars. (but I repeat myself.)

I think I have absorbed a negative STL thing, which is that when people do dumb things like walk across the road in huge groups when they don't have the light, I want to yell "fuck*ng HOOSIERS."
(here, Hoosier refers to a yokel/hick, not a person from Indiana.)
alternative, more modern variant: "GO BACK TO LADUE."
although that has a different socioeconomic footprint. An opposite one, I guess.

[pmcd9]

Would I be a bad wife if I made him come with me while I spent four hours shopping for yarn on his birthday? I don't see how this is different.

Yes, it's considerably different.  Going to the yarn store is not a once a year event.  It's also not celebrated with parties.

The Super Bowl is a major event, your birthday's no big deal.

[Nabubrush]

I just feel like if you hate cleaning the cat's litterbox or changing the oil in your car, you should not have to do those things on your birthday. And I would rather spend the day scrubbing toilets than watching the super bowl. At least at the end of it, I'd have clean toilets!

+1 can!

Which, come to think of it, is usually the opposite of what happens after Pedro eats his dad's Super Bowl Chili.

-1 can.

Sorry, that's a wash.

Most country's basketball teams are full of professional players. They may not play in the NBA (although many do), but they play in their own country's professional leagues.

Umm, yeah. Not a big rah rah America guy, but I think we can mostly all agree that the best players, by and large, play in the NBA. When guys leave college to play in Europe, everyone doesn't think "wow, that guy really made it". When guys come here from Europe or China or whatever, they are the best of the best in those leagues. I will admit it is different for baseball and hockey, but the NBA? Nahh.


Seriously, JL, you should not have to be relegated to doing chores or shit like that on your birthday, no matter when it is - and this from a rabid football fan who doesn't care about birthdays. Fuck that. I'm leaning toward Pedro being allowed to watch the game and maybe take five hours to enjoy that, sure, but someone else needs to be watching the kids, or maybe everyone can try to get them involved in the game or something.

[jay-ell]

Yes, it's considerably different.  Going to the yarn store is not a once a year event.  It's also not celebrated with parties.

The Super Bowl is a major event, your birthday's no big deal.

A football game is not a once a year event, either. This particular game only happens once a year, but there are various games every week for the majority of the year. I don't have other, lesser birthdays sprinkled throughout the year. I don't celebrate the 6th day of every month by devoting a few hours of my life to sitting on my ass in front of the TV.

What if it were a Yarn and Craft Show that only comes once a year, and a whole group of my lady friends were going? Should I drag him along to it so that we could be together on his birthday, even if it wasn't something he would ever want to do? No, I should not. I should tell my friends, "I hate to miss it, but it's my husband's birthday, I want to be with him, and he is not interested in yarn and crafts. Have fun without me."

Furthermore, whatever your personal feelings about football, the Super Bowl is not a major event for either of us. I hate football; he thinks it's OK. It's primarily a social event for him. He was much, much more excited about the Tron: Legacy release, and we had a party and original Tron viewing at our house (which was very much like a super bowl party, actually) when that happened. He has already told me he doesn't mind missing the game this year. And after ten years of attending Super Bowl parties with him even though neither of us gives a shit about the actual game, I think taking him up on his offer to take one year off fails to meet the legal statute for spousal abuse in my state.

[JorgeFabregas]

Umm, yeah. Not a big rah rah America guy, but I think we can mostly all agree that the best players, by and large, play in the NBA. When guys leave college to play in Europe, everyone doesn't think "wow, that guy really made it". When guys come here from Europe or China or whatever, they are the best of the best in those leagues. I will admit it is different for baseball and hockey, but the NBA?

Of course the NBA is the best league. How does that make the American players ringers? They're ringers just because they're better? That doesn't make any sense.

[pmcd9]

You can't compare the Super Bowl to a Yarn show.  That's an apples to extremely boring oranges comparison.  Your birthday falling on Super Bowl Sunday is more akin to having your birthday fall on Christmas day and thus deciding not to celebrate Christmas.

[jay-ell]

You can't compare the Super Bowl to a Yarn show.  That's an apples to extremely boring oranges comparison.  Your birthday falling on Super Bowl Sunday is more akin to having your birthday fall on Christmas day and thus deciding not to celebrate Christmas.

Wow, hyperbole much? And for that matter, judgmental much?

I guarantee you that I find football every bit as boring and distasteful as you would find a crafts fair. The difference being, of course, that I have watched (or tried to watch) at least a dozen football games in my adult life, which I'd guess outpaces the number of crafts fairs you've attended by a significant distance.

That doesn't make your interest in football any less valid. But just because you don't think knitting is awesome doesn't make yarn intrinsically boring. And football, I hate to break it to you, is not intrinsically interesting. I'll remind you that my opinion of American gridiron ("who cares?") is the prevailing opinion of most of the world outside North America. Furthermore, it is NOT a national holiday like Christmas. Nobody gets the whole week off for the Super Bowl. Who's comparing apples to oranges now?

If my birthday fell on the release day for Tron: Legacy, I'd have happily attended a screening (even if it's not my first choice of birthday activity) because it was important to Adrian. But the super bowl is not important to him, he offered to skip it and do something else, I don't see why this idea is so offensive to you.

I love you, Paul, but you are so very wrong on this that if you were my boyfriend and this came up as an issue between us, I would break up with you.

[AugustWest]

It's because the Super Bowl has evolved into more than a football game.  It's a secular holiday and is as much (if not more) about the parties and watching commercials than about the actual football.  What I hear you saying is that you don't want to go to a big family party where you're not going to be the center of attention on your birthday.  Which is valid, I guess.  But why don't you go to the Super Bowl party and get a birthday outing another night?  Bingo -- TWO PARTIES WHERE THERE WAS ONLY ONE BEFORE!!!