Cam, that little toadstool, fell fast asleep at 5:45pm. He usually doesn't go to bed before about 7:45. The earliest I had seen him go to bed and stay asleep all night was 6:30. We usually try to prevent naps after 5pm so he won't stay up all evening. But this time, he was unrousable. Unrousable until 8:30, when, after almost three hours in bed, he awoke fresh as spring thunderstorm. Luckily for all of us, it was Super Bowl Sunday. Being the red-blooded American that I am (and being an unemployed sack of [expletive] who can sleep until noon on a Monday), I was determined to stay up and watch it. The Pats were in it. I had to watch, even though they were ripe for a Denver-esque Super Bowl *sskicking.

Super Bowl coverage was scheduled to begin at 10:30pm on Matt and Susan's satellite dish. I volunteered to stay up with Cam so Susan could hope for a few hours sleep. At 10:15, I discovered that Matt and Susan don't get the sports channels! Plan foiled. But then Susan, out of the goodness of her heart (or perhaps in absolutely dire need of a few hours sleep), called and ordered one month of the sports package. (Some of the channels have "football" playing almost all the time, only it looks an awful lot like soccer.) The channel was supposed to be activated in between 2 and 30 minutes. Susan was in bed before activation of the channel could be verified.

But it did come on. NFL Live. As covered by SkySports 1? C'mon, you mean that the Brits presented their own coverage of the game? Indeed. At least they used the American video feed. And the game was covered by Daryl Johnston and a usual Sunday play-by-play voice whose name I don't know, but they were teamed up with a British guy who sounded just like Gordon Elliot, that annoying Limey who used to have a Sally Jesse Raphael style talk show but then washed out and now barges into people's homes on The Food Channel. And this guy was VERY eager to show how much he knew about "American Football." And they replaced almost all the commercials (except the Budweiser genius ads) with two ex-football guys who talked about the game. Also, a bunch of player bio bits were replaced by bio bits about guys' careers in NFL Europe. Adam Vinateri, Kurt Warner, and some other guys have quite storied NFL Europe careers. And the Pats have a player from Britain. Who knew?

So after Matt and Susan went to bed, Cam and I settled in to watch The American Spectacle. And it was great. The Pats ran back an interception and were up 7 to 3 at the end of the first quarter. They scored again in the second, and a potential Super Bowl upset, the likes of which haven't been seen since Joe Namath and the Jets defeated the Colts in Super Bowl III, was in the making. An unexpectedly interesting Super Bowl! Sports history in the making! AND CAM AND I WERE THERE! Except that Cam was completely uninterested in the Superbore. He spent most of the first half preoccupied with The Amazing Magazine Rack ("Wow, I can spread these magazines everywhere!") before falling asleep a bit before half time. He paid attention to the game for only few moments when he tried to taste Kurt Warner during a retrospective of his time with the Frankfurt Galaxy. Later, with a minute 41 seconds to play, a tie game, and no time-outs left for either team, the Patriots marched down the field. The 16.5 point underdog Patriots kicked a Super Bowl winning field goal as the game clock ticked to zero, putting a storybook ending on a season that began 1-3, but Cam, already snoring up in his crib, couldn't have given a diaper load. Oh well.

Oh, I did one more small thing PPLP related this day. I decided to add an executive summary. There may be people who are curious to see the practical stuff I learn without wasting time reading about Brie division sleight of hand or NFL Europe tastings.

Weight Watchers dinner was Vegetable and Beef Stir Fry (very heavy on the vegetables), served with rice. The Brie sandwiches had backed us into a corner. Susan had to eat a zero point dinner in order to try the new Weight Watchers brand ice cream cups we had bought with the Brie. She couldn't even have rice with her vegetables. Matt still wanted to have his cheese plate, and I was determined to socialize with him and have an ounce of Stilton after dinner myself. I needed to save three points for my cheese nibble.