Random thoughts that may or may not have something to do with being home sick last week.

Food

I’ve been reading about Pizza Hut and all of their new crust/topping/sauce combinations. And then thinking about how food companies tailor their offerings in different countries. Do you think a haggis/head cheese/kidney pizza would sell in Scotland? Or is that more of a Subway sandwich combination?

Back in the dark ages when people made gingerbread houses by hand, you had to make them close to Christmas so they’d still be edible on the holiday. People who were good at them (not me) spent hours making them look good. Now there are kits, so there’s not a lot of skill required. It appears that there isn’t any real time constraint either. The expiration date is months in the future. So is it already hard and dry when you make it?

Santa Claus

As we all know, Santa lives at the North Pole. We also know that the North Pole is only a set of coordinates because there isn’t any land/ice mass at the top of the world. So I’m thinking that his workshop must be on one of those really huge ice floes in the far north.

Since he lives on an ice floe, he’s probably going to be affected by global warming the same as the polar bears. Which brings up a series of questions:

• Will he need to relocate operations?
• Where would be remote enough to keep everything secret? Maybe Antarctica?
• Would he pay relocation costs for the elves?
• Would he offer any kind of training so they could move into another field?
• Would he replace them with penguins who probably work more cheaply and don’t require housing?
• Would he keep anyone at the old workshop or just close it completely down?
• Are there any hazardous waste issues? Old lead paint?

American Football

Speaking of climate change, some of us in Michigan are wondering if the temperature may be dropping down in the underworld. You may have heard that the Detroit Lions qualified for the post-season with two games remaining. Of course, the next day they almost lost to the Chicago Bears who were playing with a backup quarterback who hadn’t started a game in three years. The same Chicago Bears they tore apart on Thanksgiving Day. Same old Lions.

On the other hand, have we finally seen the end of Bobby Layne’s curse?

You’ve never heard of Bobby Layne’s curse? Or Bobby Layne? He was an outstanding quarterback who led the Lions to several championships in the 1950’s. (Yes, you have to go back that far for the glory days.) In 1958, the Lions traded Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was not happy. Layne responded to the trade by saying that the Lions would “not win for 50 years.”

For the next 50 years after the trade, the Lions accumulated the worst winning percentage of any team in the NFL. The Lions were 1-10 in postseason appearances. The last year of the supposed curse, 2008, Detroit went 0-16 and thus became the first team to lose every game of a 16-game season.

In the 2009 NFL Draft, right after the curse supposedly expired, the Detroit Lions drafted University of Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford. Stafford was an alumnus of Layne’s former school Highland Park High School and also lived in a house on the same street as Layne’s. Coincidence?

So what do you think: bad drafting/coaching/playing for 50 years or a curse? I’m going with the curse.

TV Commercials

Returning to the dark ages when I started watching football on TV, the commercials were mainly about beer and food. Then we moved on to ED. It was a little embarrassing, but probably a mass market.

As we get closer to Christmas, the commercials have turned overwhelmingly to jewelers. I understand that a lot of men propose over the holidays. And a lot of men buy jewelry at Christmas. But were there really that many who are watching the first college bowls this past Saturday who needed reminding that they were going to buy an engagement ring? An expensive engagement ring?