If you’re like me, you spent this past weekend stuck snowed in watching “The Shining” in Baltimore, worried about who was gonna snap first should the beer run out before the roads got plowed.
But even though I ended up making it back to good old Sussex County alive, and without any sort of cabin fever/alcohol withdrawal delirium causing me to see those creepy twins or “Redrum” in the mirror or anything like that, I’m still a little bit concerned about this Sunday.
This Sunday, of course, marks the first without NFL football since September… That is, unless you’re one of the like 12 people that watch the Pro Bowl. But don’t worry, Sussex County, even if you’re not like Point graphic artist Tom Maglio and looking forward to mocking Deion Sanders’ Pro Bowl uniform designs again this year, there’s still plenty to do this football-less Sunday that’ll keep you from going all Jack Torrance on everyone.
Here’s a few Tripple Overtime-certified suggestions:
(1) Mourn the Patriots — They say that there’s five stages of grief. The first is denial, which I’m sure passed quickly, given the fact that they tend to show a lot of reaffirming highlights after AFC championship games. The second is anger, which I hope didn’t lead to any broken state championship trophies or torn up journalistically ingenious Coastal Point articles regarding the Indian River soccer team that feature an inventive prose and unmatched style. And then there’s a bunch more stages that I not only forget, but probably couldn’t think of anything remotely amusing to pair with anyway.
So, if you’re a Patriots fan, like Indians’ head soccer coach Steve Kilby, you can also add figuring out the three remaining five stages of grief to your list this Sunday, while you go through them, which is, I’m sure, what Tom Brady himself is doing with his new found free time, aside of course, from catching up on his Tripple OT.
(2) Learn Mandarin — We’ve all seen “Red Dawn.” It’s only a matter of time until this is mandatory, people. Better get a jump while you have the chance.
(3) Edit Tripple Overtimes with footnotes — One of my favorite things to do is read Tripple Overtime. One of my least favorite things to do is to edit Tripple Overtime. One of Coast Point News Editor M. Patricia Titus’ least favorite things to do is both.
So when I sent her a column with 18 footnotes a few weeks ago, it might as well have said: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over for about 1,500 words or so.
[Editor’s note: Tripp fails to mention he included 18 dynamic footnotes, which meant they had to be re-formatted and relocated one by one to show up properly in print, just so you could all spend half the day looking up and down the page. We hope he has learned his lesson.]
It may have been a pain, but it certainly took up a lot of her time and kept her from trying to murder me with an axe (that I know of). [Editor’s note: You’ll never know. She’s stealthy. And it would be a sword, not an axe.] Might be a good option, should you find yourself picking one up this Sunday.
(4) Help Chris Clark edit photos — While I was fending off cabin fever last weekend, Chris Clark was apparently braving the storm and posting up at local surf spots, and has the pictures to prove it. That has, of course, led to a great deal of complaining about having to edit, tone and find room in the paper for all those (and I’m quoting here) “futuristic” photos. So if anyone would like to donate their pre-Super Bowl bubble Sunday to the cause, I know everyone here at the office would appreciate it, so we can all get back to our lives and Chris can get back to the Brandywine Assisted Living Center to do whatever it is that he does there.
(5) Get ahead on all the articles you have to write for next week — LOL! Yeah, right. Why don’t I do my taxes in a timely manner while I’m at it?
Well, there you have it — cry about the Patriots, preemptively learn a language in case China ever decides to cash in, read your favorite sports column, help keep the guy who does your taxes at H&R Block from having a panic attack, check in on what Chris Clark does at Brandywine (maybe don’t do that) — plenty of things you can do aside from trying to murder everyone with an ax without football this weekend. Or, of course, you could read Tom’s (Maglio not Brady) Pro Bowl fashion blog about how the NFC’s uniforms would really pop if they added matching scarves. The choice is yours…