Monday, February 5, 2018

Heard it was a good game

I was all set to watch New England lose. I had my peanuts, small can of Coke and satellite TV. The dogs we're house-sitting were nestled asleep in their beds. Just go to France Channel 9 and, voila!, there would be Super Bowl LII, I was told.


Instead, I got this:


I'm in France, rural France. It's midnight (we're six hours ahead of the U.S.) I'm not about to mess with our host's satellite hookups. There are no bars nearby and if there were they'd be showing highlights of the Six Nations Rugby Championship, not American football. I'm not a big NFL fan and I can barely sit still through an entire game, but after a month here I was looking forward to good old American sports TV. Inane conversations among broadcasters, unending replays and maybe a witty commercial or two  (Liked the NY Giants' play on Dirty Dancing).

It's not much to ask since we spend most days outdoors exercising the dogs, or reading books, visiting fantastic cities like Bordeaux, and having great meals.
The old city gate of Bordeaux.
The only TV we watch here are Netflix shows like The Outlander, Grace and Frankie and Designated Survivor and maybe some BBC and CNN news. Sometimes we go days without staring at the screen and haven't suffered withdrawal symptoms.
Goat-cheese salad.

The Super Bowl was the first test of no-TV life for me. No, I had no desire to watch the State of the Union. I can do this. We won't have a TV in our new home. French TV is pretty bad anyway, based on what I've seen and been told. We'll rely on tablet or computers to view selected shows.

But I would like to have seen the Eagles prove that Tom Brady, although a great player, was human.


7 comments:

  1. I couldn't stay up anyway! Sounds like it was a good game.

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  2. Hello Earl! Have you been able to Watch the Superbowl LII on the french channel 9 / W9 ? A very very good game according to me and a great show with Justin Timberlake like american showmakers are the only ones to do such awesome thing. Have a good time in la France profonde/deep France ( as we say here out of Paris ).Philippe

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  3. Sorry Earl. I have reread your post and I misunderstood due to my weak level of English.Channel 9/W9 is available without satellite on cable network.I wish I could have help you to watch this very good game( it ends up around 4:30 A.M....harsh time to go to bed ... )

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  4. Bummer. Not much of a NFL fan either but it was a great game and not just because the Eagles won. Enjoyed your post

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  5. I got the same picture of the game you did in my California small town, only maybe worse. Most of the game, my TV screen was black. There were occasional bleed-throughs of static and woozy pictures, even instances of perfect picture and sound. Critically, the final touchdown blacked out at the snap of the ball and returned to flickering "touchdown" words on the screen. Then that was that. I didn't bother to report it to the cable company until the next day. As I recall, there's an answering service on weekends.

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  6. Thanks everyone for stopping to read my new blog and commenting. I'll try to make it worth your time. Philippe, your Anglais is very good, way better than my attempts at French.

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  7. Hi Earl, FOP here. I've been following and loving Paulita for ages and lately encouraging her to write a book based on this first year abroad. Now that you're writing too, it makes the idea of a book even more of a no-brainer, the His and Hers responses to all your French adventures.
    As far as the game goes, it was very exciting, even to a non-football fan like me. And yes, very sweet to see the Underdog topple the great Tom Brady. I've followed you, I don't see a Subscriber link.
    Cheers. Sim

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