Emptying my notebook on vanilla, baby sprinkles and more

It's the second Sunday of April, which means (don't check) that it's time for my semiannual, ritualistic emptying of the notebook.

As my less-popular colleague Tony Wade observes, sometimes we have ideas that aren't enough to make up a column. Gathered together they create what we like to call a "think piece."

We are the only ones who call it that, by the way.

Such as:

• It's unfair that "vanilla" has turned into a synonym for "bland."

It happens all the time in sports or entertainment. If a performer or athlete is boring – on the stage or field or when dealing with the media – he or she is often dismissed as "vanilla."

Really?

Vanilla is a flavor! It's a strong flavor. Vanilla ice cream isn't ice cream without flavor. The flavor is vanilla!

If I was in the vanilla industry, I would champion this cause, because it's unfair.

Vanilla isn't bland. Vanilla is a flavor.

• A work friend recently attended a "baby sprinkle," which apparently is a thing. It's not a baby shower, it's a sprinkle. It's a way to get gifts for a second or third baby, apparently.

What? Why not just have a baby shower again if that's an issue. Why do we need to create a new term that is so obviously just an adjustment to the correct term (it's not a shower, it's a sprinkle!)?

That, by the way, is an old-man rant. Now get off my lawn and let me listen to my transistor radio.

• Did you see the report that the Pew Research Center has defined what makes someone a millennial?

According to Pew, the millennial generation is made up of people born between 1981 and 1996. That means the oldest millennials turn 37 this year and the youngest turn 22. (Although Pew is sloppy. The center said people born between 1981 and 1996, which literally means from Jan. 1, 1982 through Dec. 31, 1995. But they don't mean that. They meant from 1981 through 1996.)

The Pew decision brings the next problem: What do we call those born from 1997 to present? For now, Pew is calling them post-millennials, but that will likely change.

By the way, only one generation is designated such by U.S. Census Bureau – baby boomers, born from 1946 through 1964.

Now you're smarter.

• The reboot of "American Idol" on ABC is a success – if you consider "it seems just like it was before it went off the air a few years ago" to be the measure of success.

There are good singers, great (if clearly manipulative) storytelling, likable judges. Except . . .

I know that Luke Bryan is a country music legend. He seems like a nice guy. But he also seems like a stereotypical southerner straight out of "The Andy Griffith Show" – he comes across as a simpleton.

Maybe he is?

• Here's something said frequently in movies and on TV shows, but rarely in real life: "Are you threatening my family?"

It's usually at the peak of tension and is stated with an angry confidence, as if the speaker will make the person make the threat rue the day the did it.

It doesn't happen to most of  us, so I recommend you try to work it into a conversation this week. At your job, for instance, when someone asks how your weekend went, walk over to them, look them in the eye and quietly say, "Are you threatening my family?"

Then stare them down.

Trust me. It will be great. Right up until you get called in by the human resources person.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

After decades, 'The Cat in the Hat' still haunts me

When my sons were preschoolers, I was always exhausted. Parenthood and a swing shift will do that to you.

Fortunately, I learned some tricks, including memorization. I could "read" their books with my eyes closed and little energy – most notably "The Cat in the Hat."

(This is a confession, not a recommendation. And to understand the rest of this column, it's helpful to know the plot of "The Cat in the Hat.")

I could go from "The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play . . ." all the way through the appearance of The Cat in the Hat, the destruction of the house, the appearance of Thing 1 and Thing 2, the miraculous cleanup and the return of mother. Without opening my eyes.

Now that Mrs. Brad and I have our first grandchild, the circle of life is about to come around and I'll again be reading Dr. Seuss, which got me thinking . . . what the heck was the point of "The Cat in the Hat"?

I'm certainly not alone in questioning Dr. Seuss' writing, which is brilliant but sometimes disturbing (for instance, was "Green Eggs and Ham" really a willingness to try drugs? Does Sam I Am represent your neighborhood dealer and are "green eggs and ham" really LSD?). However, nearly every element of "The Cat in the Hat" is upsetting if you think about it while reading to a 3-year-old.

Consider, for instance:

1. The fish represents responsibility in the book, but Seuss made him (her?) a prissy killjoy. Why would a child's book portray the most responsible character as joyless, while making the irresponsible party likable. Kind of.

2. Why does the fish consider the mother of the children in the book to be his mother. In fact, he calls her "our mother." He's a fish! Someone needs to inform him that Sally's mother is his owner, not his mother.

3. What exactly are Thing 1 and Thing 2? Are they related to The Cat in the Hat? Are they his minions, forced to do his bidding? Are they the muscle in some Cat in the Hat mob? All we know is after The Cat in the Hat wreaks havoc on the household – mostly by performing ill-advised balancing acts – Thing 1 and Thing 2 make things worse. The house is in chaos and mother is approaching before The Cat in the Hat rides in on a bizarre machine that cleans everything.

4. What the heck is going on with the mother? The children in the story are clearly no older than elementary-school age, yet the mother leaves them at home with very little instruction. You get the feeling that had something gone horribly wrong (The Cat in the Hat starts a fire, burning the domicile to ashes; Thing 1 and Thing 2 cook the pet fish for lunch), it would end up with her in jail. She left two young children alone for hours to fend for themselves.

5. Most importantly, can I get one of The Cat in the Hat's cleaning machines? That thing is amazing!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Young men missing life lessons of shaving

Men just don't shave like they used to.

According to www.statisticsbrain.com (my go-to site for statistics. And brains. And brain statistics), 75 percent of men in America shave every day. That seems high to me, especially based on seeing the number of young men (two of whom stand in line to inherit the Stanhope family throne) who obviously don't regularly shave.

Beards are nearly everywhere. Stubble is present in most other places. We have a month (November) when men allegedly don't shave.

Unfortunately, this change means that younger men (and some older men) miss out on some of the great lessons of life: Things that shaving daily teaches you.

(Not to chase rabbits too much, but the popularity of the stubble look for men has ruined one of the great phrases in our lexicon: "The five o'clock shadow." Is there a better example of using a term to describe something clearly? It looks like a shadow, you get it around five o'clock! It's a perfect word picture!)

Yes, shaving is a metaphor for life. Much of my (minimal) accumulated wisdom comes from applying lessons from my daily three-minute shaving ritual. Those lessons are transferable, too.

If you're a man and you don't shave, you might miss these pointers. So pull up a razor, get some shaving cream, a hand towel, water and take notes.

Here's what you learn from shaving:

1. Consistency is key. If you have regular facial hair (definition of regular: like mine), you need to shave every day. Day after day. Weekends. Holidays. Vacations. If you choose to not shave, that's fine, but it will be obvious. Shave occasionally and you create facial-hair chaos. You must shave every day.

The same thing is true in the rest of life. You win by doing the right thing every day: Save money, exercise, learn new skills. Do it every day and you remain on top of your game. Don't create life chaos.

2. Small things can cause big problems. Everyone who shaves with a razor has probably nicked his nose or earlobe. Small cut, right? Sure, but big, nonstop blood. It keeps coming and coming and coming.

The same thing is true in life: Keep an eye on the big things (don't do the life equivalent of cutting your throat with a razor), but don't neglect the small things. Tell your wife or girlfriend you love her. Go to the doctor regularly. Change the oil in your car. Don't let the important things become the bleeding earlobe in your life, because you can bleed out from that little nick. Or at least look silly with toilet paper stuck to your ear.

3. Recognize progress, but make your own decisions. I started with disposable razors, then switched to electric razors because they seemed better. After a few years, I realized blades worked better for me – and now I use a razor. The point? I experimented, but I didn't fall for the new-is-always-better line.

Shaving teaches us the key to evaluating life: Don't always believe the hype. That may prevent you from buying that great new flawed computer, the motorcycle you don't need or hooking up with a woman at your workplace. Newer is different. Newer isn't always better. Make sure it's better before you change. (And even if you think the woman at the office is better than your wife, don't change. Stay with the razor that works for you.)

Shaving is life, life is shaving.

Although now I'm nervous that I'll nick my earlobe again.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

British report on children, pencils seems suspicious

We should be outraged!

A report by Heart of England Foundation NHS Trust – one of the biggest operators of British hospitals – recently said that young children are finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because they use technology so much. The source for that information was "senior pediatric doctors," which sounds like doctors who treat older children (maybe teenagers?), but actually means doctors who have been treating children for a long time.

According to Sally Payne, the head pediatric occupational therapist at the NHS Trust, "Children coming into school are being given a pencil but are increasingly not able to hold it because they don't have the fundamental movement skills."

What?

WHAT??

"To be able to grip a pencil and move it, you need strong control of the fine muscles in your fingers," Payne said. "Children need lots of opportunity to develop those skills."

Payne blames the change on parents giving their children iPads, rather than building blocks, pulling toys and ropes. Articles about the study invariably report that traditionally, children played with such things as crayons to help them begin to develop the skills required to write.

This is outrageous! How ridiculous is it that in the 21st century, we rely on technology so much that our children can't even hold a pencil? Their fingers are so weak that they . . .

Wait . . .

They're too weak to hold a pencil? They lack the fine motor skills to sloppily trace things?

I call baloney.

Really.

How hard is it to hold a pencil? Do these researchers think we're so dumb that we'll believe that the average kindergartner is a 5-year-old version of Montgomery Burns from "The Simpsons," unable to grasp a pencil without fainting from exhaustion? Are we supposed to believe that the past 20 years have seen such a change in children and parents that teachers must show kids how to hold something that is easier to hold than a fork?

Hmmm.

Here's what I know after several decades on Earth: When a study comes out that says something shocking, one of the first things to consider is the source of funding.

Follow the money.

An example: I've been a diabetic since I was 14. During that time, there have been maybe a half-dozen artificial sweeteners introduced. Nearly all were heralded as the next big thing until the inevitable study: (Insert sweetener name here) causes cancer! It causes seizures! It causes extra arms to grow out of your chest! It turns you into a camel!

Some may be true (for instance, the camel one), but years of suspicion taught me that all those studies are financed by the same group: Big Sugar.

Who loses money if an artificial sweetener grows? Sugar.

Who funds those studies? I didn't do any research, but I have an opinion. I don't trust Big Sugar.

What does that have to do with weak-fingered British children? Well, just as I'm skeptical about the latest study that frightens people away from using artificial sweetener, I'm skeptical of a study that suggests that kindergartners can't hold pencils. It's absurd. Common sense says it's not true.

So who do I suspect?

Big Crayon.

Who would benefit from causing a panic among parents of young children that their offspring are losing fine motor skills because of technology? The folks who create crayons, the most popular way to build those skills in the preschool set – a way that nearly every article about the topic says is a natural way for kids to build pencil-holding skills.

Big Crayon!

Big Crayon should be ashamed of itself. And if you put sugar on a crayon and eat it, you'll get sick, according to a study I imagined.

See how they like it!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

There's a real problem with people who say 'long story short'

Mrs. Brad and I recently discussed about how certain people often tell long, involved stories and she made an astute observation: People who say "long story short" rarely tell short stories.

Her observation came after we sat through a long narrative about an experience someone had, as he added unnecessary details and descriptions of things that weren't germane to the point at the end. And he said "long story short," at least twice.

That people who say that rarely mean it is one of the ironies of life, like how duct tape shouldn't be used on ducts and that the only guy in ZZ Top without a beard is named Frank Beard.

Anyway, long story short, the storyteller took much longer to get to the point of his story than had he simply told us the key point. And he made it longer when he explained that he would make it short.

We all know storytellers and most are people who have always been that way. Hopefully, they've improved their skills throughout their lives, but that's not a given. Some people are just as long-winded at 80 as they were at 8.

I don't think that applies to me, but I don't really clearly remember what I was like at 8 and don't know if I'll reach 80. Maybe others do.

But long story short, I had a recent Facebook post wherein I shared the mean-spirited criticisms I get sometimes for my column and volunteered that I occasionally post them on my cubicle wall. I said it was "for inspiration," but really it's to amuse me.

Anyway, one of my friends – Kenny, who once lived in a treehouse – agreed with one critic who compared my writing with that of a middle-school student by saying that I've written like this since middle school. Because he's known me that long.

Long story short, another friend chimed in to say that I've always had "the gift of gab," which both amused and surprised me. Because I don't see myself that way and because I haven't heard anyone born after 1930 use the phrase "gift of gab." But my friend did.

I guess that's a long way to explain the fact that those of us who like to tell stories – and really, many of my columns are just absurd storytelling – do it naturally. Those of us who are too long-winded often know it and try to mitigate the danger by telling people we are going to make it shorter than it would be otherwise.

However, we don't always do so.

Long story short, we think that saying we're not going to do something buys us a little mercy from people, since we acknowledge our weakness.

It's like people who say "no offense" before they say something offensive. I don't know about you, but I've never said "no offense" without following it up with something that is potentially offensive. Otherwise, why say it?

Long story short, you don't.

Anyway, to get back to the point made way back in the first paragraph, Mrs. Brad is correct (nearly always, with the notable exception of an argument we had early in our marriage about our dresser and chest of drawers. Turns out she thought a chest of drawers was called a "dresser" and vice-versa. For one memorable time, I was demonstrably right. But, long story short, what followed is 30-plus years of me being wrong.).

Aren't people who tell wandering stories annoying?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

A star is born, but Streisand's dogs are cloned

It was the most jarring news of the past week: In an article in entertainment trade magazine Variety, it was revealed that Barbra Streisand cloned her aging dog and now has two clone-version puppies.

Think about that.

BARBRA STREISAND CLONED HER DOG!

According to the article, two of Streisand's Coton de Tulear dogs are clones. The magazine reported that Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett (the puppies) were cloned from cells taken from the mouth and stomach of Samantha, Streisand’s dog that died last year at age 14.

A star is born, but a dog, apparently, is cloned.

According to Streisand, Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett “have different personalities. I’m waiting for them to get older so I can see if they have her brown eyes and her seriousness.”

Whaaaaaaaat?

A reminder: BARBRA STREISAND CLONED HER DOG.

I'd like to think she and Neil Diamond sing, "You don't dig me flowers," to the dogs, lamenting the loss of Samantha. But probably not.

Does anyone think this is a good idea? Does anyone not think this will go horribly wrong?

Cloned dogs are coming in and out of her life, like her 1982 song, right?

Clones aren't new.

The first famous clone that I remember is Dolly the sheep (1996-2003). Is it a coincidence that Barbra Streisand was the star of "Hello, Dolly!"? That seems unlikely.

Anyway, an article about BARBRA STREISAND CLONING HER DOG in The New York Times reports that about two dozen types of mammals have been cloned since Dolly, including cattle, rats, cats (hey! Nine lives!) and dogs.

A lab in South Korea claims to have cloned 600 dogs and the cost for the cloning Streisand did is reportedly about $50,000.

BARBRA STREISAND CLONED HER DOG!

Here's the big problem: Anyone who has ever read a book or seen a movie about cloning knows that it always goes wrong. The same genes duplicated over and over invariably result in some sort of perversion that results in horror for everyone.

We all love our dogs. We all wish they could live longer. But we all believe that if we did what Streisand did – committed a crime against nature by hiring a rogue scientist to duplicate a dying mammal (I presume) – the result would invariably be either:

• A dog that kills us, or
• A dog with six legs and two heads.

The fact that Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett don't have extra appendages or external organs means that it's more likely that there will be some sort of turn. Streisand will be forced to learn that people who need people are the luckiest people in the world . . . but people who CLONE DOGS are the craziest people.

At some point in the future, Streisand will undoubtedly regret that she chose to clone her beloved pet (rather than, for instance, adopt one of an estimated 3.3 million dogs that enter shelters each year in America). As Streisand suffers the horror of seeing a biological horror she unleashed, at least she'll have memories of Samantha. Misty, water-colored memories.

And she'll ask herself: If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me would we? Could we?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Baseball cards hold value beyond money

From the time I was about 10 until I was 16, the most exciting time of the year was early March. That's when the new baseball cards hit the market.

My older sisters loved Bobby Sherman, Michael Jackson and David Cassidy.

I loved baseball cards.

Due to baseball cards (and my passion for sports in general), I knew the name of every major league baseball player – at least those who were among the 660 cards printed annually by the Topps Company.

Baseball cards were fun and interesting. My collecting started slowly and built up steam. By the time I was in seventh grade, my goal was to get a complete set: All 660 cards.

Obsession? Maybe. I prefer to think of myself as driven.

My friend Dana and I competed (and teamed up), pushing each other to do better, to get more cards. We sometimes traded, but also worked together.

By the time I was 14, I stopped relying on my mom to buy cards at the grocery store and ordered cards directly from a distributor, in boxes of 1,000 or 1,500. I spent much of my savings on those cards, then waited for the UPS truck to drive to my remote home in early March. It was like watching Santa Claus come . . . if Saint Nick delivered boxes of baseball cards 10 weeks after Christmas.

I collected passionately, telling everyone that these would make me rich one day.

But it wasn't really about money. I loved baseball and loved collecting cards. I traded them with strangers (Dana and I took out an ad in a sketchy baseball card magazine to land more old cards) and dreamed of getting the rare Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays rookie card. More than anything, I loved my era: the mid-1970s.

In 1975, Dana collected 659 of the 660-card set, missing only Steve Foucault of the Texas Rangers. We spent months pursuing Foucault, an otherwise forgettable relief pitcher. I'm pretty sure that Dana never completed that set. His 1975 Topps mini set (distributed in only a few areas of the U.S.) was forever at 659, one short. Mine remained 12 short.

I put together complete sets in 1976, 1977 and 1978. Then, like nearly everyone, I slowed. Then I stopped. By the time I was a senior in high school, I had no interest in baseball cards – but unlike most people my age, I kept them. Separated by year in boxes, in numerical order.

I know that because I recently decided to sell my baseball cards after storing them for years in my garage (in a plastic tote, secured and dry, still in boxes in numerical order).

When I reviewed them recently, they looked just like they did when I was a teenager. The complete sets (and all the extras from those years) are still in order. My 1975 mini set is still just 12 short (including Foucault!).

When I checked them out, I didn't think of their financial value (which has dropped off a cliff in the past two decades). I thought about how much they meant to me when I was a teen. They were distinctly mine. They were my first investment. They were the way I learned about baseball and friendship.

They tied me to a place and time.

I will sell my cards in the coming months, hopefully to someone who appreciates them as a snapshot of time as much as a fiscal investment. I won't miss them, since they've been largely out of view for decades. My memories aren't financial, but what those cardboard treasures meant to me.

They meant springtime, baseball, a good investment . . . and that Steve Foucault was elusive.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

How to make Winter Olympics even better

The Winter Olympics are at a crossroads. The question is whether the International Olympic Committee is ready to take the kind of steps necessary to move the Games to the next level.

Sure, they're Olympian now, by definition. But they could be much better. I'm optimistic that the IOC is willing to surge ahead to ensure the success (and by success, I mean good TV ratings) into the future.

The IOC has already made steps.

Consider the difference from even 38 years ago. Back in 1980, the U.S. Olympics hockey team won the gold medal, but the rest of the Olympics? Boring figure skating. No short-track skating. No snowboarding, half-pipe. Not even any curling. There were only six sports – with 10 events (since things like skiing have multiple variations) – contested. This year? There are 15 sports with 102 events.

Here's my point: The IOC doesn't need to keep expanding sports. It simply needs to make the existing ones more exciting.

I have recommendations.

You want me to keep watching NBC's coverage through commercials every five minutes and boring interviews? Try these three updates to the sports:

Multiple competitors at once. In events such as short-track speed skating, the excitement comes from several athletes racing simultaneously – and the inherent danger. Same thing is true on the snowboarding and skiing slopestyle events.

What if we added multiple performers to other sports?

I'm thinking of downhill ski races, sending them down side-by-side or side-by-side-by-side (elbowing each other at 60 mph). What about three or four luge teams shooting down a wide track simultaneously, racing to the finish?

Want something really out of the box? How about multiple figure skaters on the ice at the same time? The thrill of whether someone will land a triple-lutz, triple-toe loop combination will be multiplied when someone else is racing toward them. Backward.

Increase jingoism. When I was a kid, the Olympics were all about misplaced national pride. The Russians (who were the Soviets then) cheated. We didn't. Wins over the evil empire were celebrated as if they proved our culture was better.

We live in a flattened world, where we don't believe that anymore. But what if we tied medals at the Olympics to something of national importance – for instance, to the ability to have military bases in other countries. Each gold medal gets you three foreign bases, a silver medal gets you two and a bronze gets you one.

Do you think we'd care more about the giant slalom or the skeleton if a gold medal expanded American military influence?

And how significant would this year's banning of the Russian team be if that meant they had to close all of their military bases in other nations?

Let's bring back American pride: Make the Winter Olympics determine our nation's influence on the world.

A winter pentathlon. The Summer Games have the decathlon and the pentathlon in track and field and this is the winter version. Imagine watching the same person over the course of the week competing in downhill skiing, figure skating, the luge, the ski jump and curling. It would be ratings gold, especially if multiple people were competing at the same time!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Why your local newspaper is a treasure

I love newspapers.

That may sound self-serving, but it's not. I haven't worked for a newspaper for more than three years. I pay to subscribe to the Daily Republic, just like you.

I love newspapers and cheer for them to succeed.

It's easy to knock your local newspaper. Almost everyone does so – giving it a sarcastic nickname that suggests some fatal flaw. During my career, I worked for the Times-Standard (called the "Sub-Standard" by locals) and the Daily Republic (called the "Daily Repulsive" by locals). I tolerated those slights because I knew that happened everywhere. And I knew people were wrong. Both newspapers were good.

Local newspapers play an important, irreplaceable role in our lives. Local newspapers cover high school and community sports. They keep track of events at schools and weekend gatherings that are what make communities great. They tell you what's coming in entertainment.

They cover what's happening and serve as watchdogs of local agencies. Do you want to go to every city council or school board meeting and keep track of the happenings? If not, do you want someone to do it for you? Local newspapers do that. When a local newspaper goes away (as it did in Bell, in Southern California, a few years ago), local agencies can go crazy, because no one is watching. A local newspaper is much more authoritative than the local blogger.

There's been plenty of talk about the struggling economic model of newspapers and how they're not relevant in a world of social media and web-based outlets.

But when people ask me about newspapers and say things like, "They can't compete with the internet," I disagree. Because if you look at the real reporting of news on the internet, the coverage of government and well-written articles about events that matter most to you, they almost all come from newspapers.

Local newspapers are where we turn during events like last fall's wine country fires, when we need to have a broader focus. They're where we turn when there is crime or a fire in our neighborhood. They're where we turn when our child graduates from high school and we want to see photos.

Newspapers cover all those things. And you know what else? Newspapers pay reporters and photographers and editors. Newspapers pay receptionists and payroll clerks and the folks who design advertisements (so you don't have to pay 100 percent of the cost). Newspapers pay the people who work the printing press and those who make sure the newspaper gets delivered to your house.

And trust me, while newspapers pay all those people, none of the employees are getting rich.

The Daily Republic requires you to pay to see its online content, which has undoubtedly brought complaints from people who would never think to give away their work for free. I don't mind paying for the Daily Republic (just as I don't mind paying for internet access and food and heat and water). It's payment for service.

A recent article pointed out that the millennial generation, stereotyped as whiners who want everything for free, are leading the way back to traditional media. Millennials realize that it makes sense to pay for news in the same way they pay for food and clothing.

I love newspapers. My biggest hope is that they survive and thrive in the new world.

Because if we let local newspapers go away, the first losers will be those who make a living there. But the biggest losers will be our communities, which will lose something impossible to replace.

Keep supporting your local newspaper.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Super Bowl 'facts' to make you a hit

Today is Super Sunday – the day of the ultimate football game (although, as I point out nearly every year, Dallas Cowboys running back Duane Thomas was correct nearly five decades ago when he said, "If it's the ultimate game, why are they playing it again next year?").

It's Super Bowl Sunday! Or, as we call it, "The Tom Brady Variety Show."

In case you thought today was about sports, consider the fact that the NFL threatens to sue any business that uses the words "Super Bowl" to promote something that isn't tied to the league. By "tied," I mean "paying" the league.

Super Bowl. Super Bowl. Super Bowl.

A sport? Far from it. The Super Bowl is big business, although it's big business that you will watch.

If you're a sports fan, you'll watch because it's the biggest sports event of the year. If you're not a sports fan, you'll watch it because everyone else is watching it and you can only see the Puppy Bowl so many times before you get cuteness fatigue.

There's a problem, though. The game will take nearly four hours to play and you will probably run out of things to say, whether or not you know anything about sports.

What to do? Here's one suggestion: Memorize the following "facts" and recite them during the game. Yes, "facts" is in quotes because I made some up. But the people you talk to won't know that (although you will, because the made-up "facts" have an asterisk after them).

Want to be part of the discussion? Drop these tidbits during today's game:

• The National Chicken Council says 1.25 billion chicken wings will be eaten during the game, bad news for 612,500,000 chickens.

• Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the Super Bowl is being played, is the most popular five-syllable city in America (Interesting, since Philadelphia – hometown of one of the teams in the Super Bowl – also has five syllables. It ranks fourth, also behind Colorado Springs). *

• Despite the frequent misspelling by your co-workers and mother-in-law, the game is called the Super Bowl. Two words. Both capitalized. (That's an emotional reaction from spending 20 years as a sports writer, which is also two words).

• Pink will sing the national anthem. She is the second color-named person to sing the anthem during a Super Bowl. (Redd Foxx performed an obscene version in 1968.) *

• Despite the similarity of their names, Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and kicker Steven Gostkowski are not related. Weird.

• Justin Timberlake will perform at halftime this year, but most observers consider the show-stopping performance by Up With People in 1976 ("200 Years and Just a Baby: A Tribute to America's Bicentennial") as the greatest entertainment spectacle not only in Super Bowl history, but in world history. *

• My sister, Jana, traveled with Up With People for a spell. I denied it to my friends.

• Billy and Benny McCrary, who gained fame in the Guinness Book of World Records as "fattest twins," with that awesome photo of them on the minibikes, never played in the Super Bowl.

• Tom Brady's father, Oliver, was the goofy cousin introduced during the final season of "The Brady Bunch" in an effort to bolster the show. Which means Tom Brady is second cousins with Greg, Peter, Bobby, Marcia, Jan and Cindy. *

• You can bet on nearly anything in the Super Bowl, including whether the national anthem will take more than 2 minutes (historic average: 1:58) and whether the coin toss will land "heads" or "tails" (tails has a four-Super Bowl winning streak and leads the overall series 27-24).

• The winner of the Super Bowl goes to Disney World for one day, but the losing team is forced to go there for a week, as punishment. *

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.