A Nerd's Survival Guide to #SuperBowl XLV

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @AdamReisinger

Hey, so we did this last year, and apparently it was pretty popular, so let’s do it again: your nerdy survival guide to Super Bowl XLV. If last year’s guide was Super Bowl Sunday 101, then this is SBS 206: Advanced Super Bowl Party Survival. So make sure you’ve completed the pre-requisite coursework (e.g. CLICK HERE TO READ LAST’S YEAR’S GUIDE) before enrolling in this year’s class.

OK, everyone got their No. 2 pencils sharpened? If so, why? This is the Internet. No one uses pencils anymore.

First things first, XLV is 45. The NFL insists on using Roman Numerals to designate their Super Bowls. Why not just call it the 2011 Super Bowl? Well, that’s because the NFL plays nearly the entirety of its regular season in one year (in this case, Sunday’s game will determine the champion of the 2010 season), then the playoffs spill over into the next year. So “2011 Super Bowl Champion” could be confused as the team that won the Super Bowl in 2011, or the team that won the Super Bowl following the 2011 season. As for why they use Roman numerals and not just standard numbers, well, they just look cooler (note: may not be factually accurate).

This year’s teams are the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, two of the most storied franchises in NFL history. Even if you don’t know what colors the Steelers wear, trust me, you know. It’s not like this song hasn’t been played on the radio (OK, Pandora, since NO ONE listens to “the radio” anymore… God, Adam, what are you, like 30? Yes. Yes I am.) like a billion times.

Lil’ Wayne released a Packers version of this song called “Green & Yellow”, but it’s horrible for two reasons:

1 – Lil’ Wayne is annoying and needs to go away
2 – Lil’ Wayne is from New Orleans, the city that won the Super Bowl last year, and has NO connection to Green Bay.

Now that you’ve got all the information you need to know about the teams (what? You wanted more than “Black & Yellow” and “Green & Yellow”? Trust me, you’re set.), here’s a quick rundown on some of the people you might already know, and why you might already know them:

Ben Roethlisberger

The Steelers quarterback has already won two Super Bowl titles (SB XL and SB XLIII), but is probably best known among the general public for the two sexual assault cases he’s been involved with. Roethlisberger has never been charged with a crime in connection with either of the cases, but was still forced to sit out the first four games of this season by the NFL.

Troy Polamalu

The NFL’s reigning defensive player of the year, Polamalu is best known for his long hair. The Steelers safety has a lucrative endorsement deal with Head & Shoulders, and his hair is insured for one million dollars.

Clay Matthews

The Packers linebacker is Green Bay’s answer to Polamalu, with long, flowing locks of his own. He just signed an endorsement deal with Suave (note: my shampoo of choice, though that’s really irrelevant in the grand scheme of things), but he’s also part of a long football legacy: his father – Clay Jr. -- played 19 seasons in the NFL, his uncle, Bruce, played 19 seasons, and his grandfather, Clay Sr., played four seasons.

Mike Tomlin

The Steelers coach graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School with a perfect 4.0 GPA and became a diagnostician at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. He was recently promoted to Head of Diagnostic Medicine in the absence of Dr. Gregory House… oh, wait, no, that’s Dr. Eric Foreman, the character played by Omar Epps. But Tomlin and Epps really do look very similar, and many, many people – including the writers of “House” – have noticed this.

Brett Keisel

OK, so unless you’re a football fan – and a dedicated one at that – you probably have no idea who this is, but you should I mean, look at that beard!

All right, so now you’re ready for the game, but Super Bowl Sunday is about so much more than the game, which is one of the main reasons a nerd can fit in at a Super Bowl party. Really, it’s all about “the game around the game.”

The national anthem is being performed by Christina Aguilera. She’s hot. This has no bearing on anything (unless you’re a compulsive gambler), but it gives me an excuse to run a Christina Aguilera photo here.

Yeah, that’s nice.

Not so nice is the halftime “entertainment”, provided this year by The Black Eyed Peas. If you’re at a party with real football fans, everyone will use this time to refill on food and drinks, so don’t worry about the halftime show anyway. I’m sure someone will have some kind of feeling about tonight being something more than an adequate evening, and possibly having the time of their lives, and everyone will agree that the Black Eyed Peas need to go away and that Fergie isn’t as hot as Christina Aguilera.

And last but not least, there are the commercials. As a refresher from last year, you don’t want to be the person at a Super Bowl party who says “I only watch for the commercials”, in part because that singles you out as stupid, but also because the commercials have become worse and worse with each passing year.

I’ll leave you with a piece of advice from last year, since I think it’s applicable to every Super Bowl in which you don’t have a personal rooting interest. Gauge the sentiment of the room early on and figure out which team the majority of people are rooting for. Support that team. The game is more fun if you're winning or losing along with everyone else. You'll be surprised how quickly you get invested in what's happening even if you don't understand it.

Oh, and GO STEELERS!

#nerdsunite

For more nerdy content, be sure to visit AdamReisinger.com, or follow Adam on Twitter (@AdamReisinger)

#Egypt: What is this, 1984?

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @MikeDelic

it's feb 3 now, morning, and the struggle in egypt continues.  hold on, i have to put on some music.  alright.  dark white winter scary beautiful changing world dawn music.  tannhauser overture feels right.  something is rising.

the last point of departure for a post from me concerning this involved the internet shut down and some other things.  the internet is back on now, though things are changed.  once people could use their smart phones again a lot of them start ed receiving texts inviting them to pro-mubarak demonstrations.  this is very 1984.  so now the tactic of the police state is not to just shut down the internet  since it is a threat but to assimilate it to their propaganda and surveillance systems.  so instead of keeping people from talking they will just join the conversation and record as much of it as possible.  they use u.s. made equipment to survey wireless digital signals. 

now, among book nerds and intellectuals, one of the interesting development has been malcom gladwell's pronouncements about how important social media is to this revolution.  he posted some article at the new yorker that ignited a lot of nerd rage on twitter and elsewhere.  i have read one of gladwell's books, the tipping point, and thought it was great, and have read different articles and reviews of his other books.  the term "tipping point" has become fairly common now and gladwell is a very intelligent man who is good at writing books.  but he's not fast enough to keep up with what he has decided to take part in.  this is ironic since he wrote a book called "blink" which is about consciousness and velocity and crap like that.  ten years ago he was ahead of his time and now he's fallen behind.  the concept of medium being more important than message a la mccluhan looms large here.  but it's essential.  it's like how you can look at the protestent revolution in christianity as having to do with christian principles or that kind of thing or you can focus on the fact that without the technology of the printing press as communications medium so that people could have bibles on a scale heretofore unknown the reformation simply couldnt have happened.  the difference between the two perspectives is profound because of the nature of technology.  things that mechanically reproduce content are completely disconnected from their content.  this is the essential thing to remember about information technology. 

etc.  there's other stuff going on that's more important than some of the silly nerd arguments.  which there have been a bunch of.  i've been following a lot of this stuff mainly on twitter.  that was the first thing i did when i got up.  okay, well, start some coffee and get the woodstove burning, then check the twitter.  seems the most recent developments involve a change in the dynamic where the "pro-mubarak protesters" who'd been attacking the original protesters (police state thugs and agitators in plainclothes) and journos.  anderson cooper from cnn got punched in the head a bunch of times.  last night before i got to bed people were saying there was some gunfire.

now from what i'm reading it appears that the military is helping the people against the state and protecting the people from the state thugs.  So we have three factions now -- the state, the people and the military.  the military is breaking away from the state and maintaining order.  the police disappeared days ago.  the military is in a sense looking after its own interests.  the thing is, even if the government is overturned the military will still be there.  there may be a full on coup any time now.  i'm sure that's what obama wants and has the cia working on it.  [update, i am now listening to a guy who is saying that the military is not doing enough and that the people want the military to give them more protection from the mubarak people because protesters are getting killed and hurt.  military guys did step in when machine gun fire broke out.  so it's complicated.  seems to me like the military is moving toward the people even (in terms of sympathy) even if not quickly enough.]

obama has publicly stated that it wants a transfer of power and that it wants mubarak to step down.  this is a big deal.  the guy was our buddy for a while.  but he was one of those seedy dictator types who we like because he will buy f16's and packetmining surveillance technology from u.s. based companies, and he'll let us use our country to torture people, and he's basically this dictator of a police states who hates human rights, but he was our guy until we threw him under the bus.  sam as with a guy like qaddafi or saddam.  the u.s. likes dictators.  we dont really care about democracy in other countries that's just the sales pitch for u.s. military hegemony and global capitalism.  but so anyway obama's basically like "you have outlived your usefulness i'm through with you."  on the one hand i'm glad because this could potentially be a good revolution with lasting positive results.  who knows though.  with revolution the odds are against you.  but some things if you cant try for them well then you simply have no soul.  this seems like one of those things to me.  i'm actually watching democracy now and they have footage of people asking obama to exert more influence.  i agree but i dont expect much of a president in times like this. 

oh and the craziest thing of all in all this is that it is another intense news event that more people on the internet seem to think involves the illuminati and crap like that.  or zionists.  it's really getting crazy.  more and more people are getting into conspiracy theories.  this is actually pretty disturbing.  we live in a time where people are suffering and riled up and therefore paranoia and scapegoating are both at high tide.  i am actually fairly paranoid and think that in the coming ages only the paranoid consciousness will survive.  i mean, people will survive physically, but most will be drones because they were not sufficiently suspicious enough of the world in general.  the paranoid crazies will be the only people who maintain freedom of thought and the rest will be drones serving a small oligarchy of fat, decadent jerks. 

or not.  these are the times that test us.  for now i am still thrilled and hopeful and scared.  a popular uprising against a brutal dictator is a beautiful thing but the truth is when things get to a high level of volatility all kinds of crazy things become more probable.

still listening to democracy now.  woman is talking about people being brutalized, the identities of the pro mubarak thugs.  sirens in the background.  it's interesting.  outside there's about a foot of snow on the ground.  everyone in the house is still in bed.  the peace and quiet are profound.  and yet over that snow and those trees information is flying everywhere.  there is joy and sorrow and repression and revolution and new news and old news and sex and poetry and lulz all flying around.  invisible words are zipping around everywhere all over the world.  sometimes you tap into it and you realize we're all neurons in one brain firing together in the service of a single decision.  okay more coffee.  later.

Dear Twitter, you're DOING TWITTER WRONG!!!!

Alrite, I am about to let it rip ... and it ain't gonna be pretty ... so uh, just sit tight.

Looky looky the email I just got from our wunnerful friends at Twitter:

First off, lemme just say - I LOOVVEEE me some Twitter. Seriously, we get it on so hardcore, it should be illegal. No joke, loves it. I just sit there so many times and wonder WTF are the founders of twitter doing? Do they USE twitter?? Then I have to sit back and think, okay, I understand, and can empathize about being "too close" to something. Please take this Biz, Ev, and Jack, as a completely outsider's perspective coming from a nerdy chick that really likes your shit.

That being said ... this was the worst email ever. Seriously. Who wrote this?

1. Where's the branding, first and foremost?!! How am I to believe this even came from you guys without it?

2. I love that you guys enabled the links in the email to actually go to the "who to follow" on twitter ... smart ... but the people you're suggesting to follow are all celebs, or people that DON'T FOLLOW BACK!!

Twitter is a communication tool, an ongoing conversation happening in real time across the world. AHH-MAZING! But celebrities SUCK as it! So, STOP SUGGESTING THEM!!! They don't @reply back, or follow!! They just sit there in their own little world, tweeting the most mundane details of their lives. Albeit, a select few actually do twitpic rad behind the scenes pics and what not ... however the MAJORITY of them are too caught up in their own little world. Not hating, but what's the value in that for the end user?? We want to be TALKED TO! ACKNOWLEDGED!! We want our tweets to be RTed ... we want people to talk WITH us, not talk TO us. If you keep telling all the newbie tweeters to follow people that will never reply back to them, they will never truly understand the value of twitter and what makes it so unbelievably AWESOME!

Screw following celebs, here - my names @JenFriel ... I'm not a celeb, just a nerd ... and you know what, I'll follow you back and talk to you!! Tweet me.

3. You mention a hashtag in this email, but you don't even say wtf it is, let alone offer some sort of example or clickable link?! Do you have ANY idea how many times a day I have to explain to people what a hashtag is?!

Do you guys know what a hashtag is? Here is the simplest explanation I give to people ...

It is for aesthetic purposes the pound sign (#) in front of a word or phrase that enables it to be a clickable link connecting you in real time to all of twitterverse. You don't have to be following a person, or have them follow you to view the hashtag, it is automatically enabled, and viewable as long as your tweets are public.

Look, our TNTML official hashtag is #nerdsunite. Wanna talk to other TNTML buddies about what's happening in your world? AWESOME! Add #nerdsunite to your tweet ... click it ... and read away! Here's what's going on right now:

I love you Twitter. I love you so so so so so soooo much, it's not even funny. I just cannot BELIEVE that the powers that be have STILL not established value in the public's mind!! Really, you have to REMIND people to check back to twitter??? The conversation should be poppin off so much, they can't live without it!!

Value. Value. Value. Please twitter, establish some value.

#thatisall

How to block certain friends from #Facebook chat

Alrite, so we all have those friends ... that the SECOND you pop online message you. You love 'em for whatever god awful reason ... but you don't always wanna talk to them. Facebook unfortunately doesn't offer a "block" feature on their current IM settings, but you can do this ...

1. Click on Chat.

2. Select "Friends list"

3. Create a new list ... I title it as "friends" because I don't know how secure these lists are. The last thing you want to do is label it, "don't ever IM me again you butthole" ... and then have the person find out. Totally not kosher.

4. Once the list has been created, hover your mouse over it and you will see "edit" appear in blue.

5. Select "edit."

6. Add your friends names. 

7. Hover the mouse back over to the listing and select the green slide bar, which will turn that list to offline.

Bada bing! Your friends on that list now cannot see you online.

Easy like Sunday morning! ... Just like your mom.

The truth about #pregnancy

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

Pregnancy.  Such a strange thing to go through.  I never wanted kids, but I always wanted to be pregnant just to see what it was like.  Now that I have done it three times, I’m sort of a pro.  

So here’s the thing.  Pregnancy is a very very personal thing - although the result is the same, and the biology is basically the same, the experiences are wildly different.  It is like you turn into a different person altogether, actually.  Society sees you differently, too.  

Pregnancy is broken down into three trimesters.  The first trimester is generally the suckiest.  Most women get sick (some like all the time), but I didn’t.  I didn’t feel great, but I could function and wasn’t barfing or anything.  Food becomes a challenge at this point.  You can’t eat anything you love because it will make you barf.  Fears about the baby getting enough nutrition when saltine crackers and chocolate milk are all that is going in get stressful....not to mention the total freakouts of I’m going to have a frickin kid.  Planned or unplanned it is insanely jarring.  Kids are forever.  Unless you are a crackwhore.

The second trimester is way better - you get your energy back, you are willing to consider having sex again, or you might crave it like a maniac, and you can eat!  Food food and more food is usually going on about this time.  Weird cravings are kind of a myth in the pickles and ice cream sense.  It is mostly assumed now that pregnant bodies crave things because they are lacking some vitamin or nutrient, and with today’s prenatal care, that iTaken by Katie Landers Photographys less likely to happen.  But your tastebuds change, I swear they do.  With my first pregnancy I ate pickles.  So cliche, but I did.  I would only stop eating pickles (the full size dills) when my hand got too cold from reaching into the jar.  Oh an sixlets.  With #2 I ate gas station bean and cheese burritos.  One for breakfast every day, and usually a couple more later on.  And fried mashed potatoes.  They tasted so good that I would have killed a clown to get my hands on some.  With #3 I craved potatoes but couldn’t eat them.  Cereal was a big hit with all three - that seems to be a pretty consistent pregnancy thing, preggos love cereal.  

Trimester numero tres is a hard one.  A lot of weight is gained at the end, and pregnancy is obvious.  It is painful.  Seriously, imagine you suddenly swallowed a bowling ball and the affect that might have on your inards.  Not pretty.  It messes with your body in lots of ways, and that’s why pregnant women fart constantly.  There is 15 or more pounds of pressure directly on their guts - intestines and bladder mostly.  

Emotionally pregnancy is up in the air.  Women either love or hate it.  I loved it.  LOVED it.  I would do surrogacy in a second if I didn’t have high risk pregnancies.  Because I’m a freak for it, I can only speak from that side, but plenty of women think it’s the worst thing they have ever gone through.  And that’s fair, it is incredibly hard, painful, invasive, scary, stressful and mean to your body.  

Stretch marks.  Ugh.  Your body just doesn’t come back from a pregnancy.  It sure as hell doesn’t come back from three, just sayin.  Even if you have an easy pregnancy, great delivery and all that, your insides just aren’t the same again.  Relationships with food will always be different.  Most women don’t just pop back into their pre-pregnancy clothes.  My ribs are still spread open, and the pain I am experiencing now from my hips trying to go back into place is nothing compared to the pain of them separating.  I had gestational diabetes with two pregnancies, which is a really big deal.  I am honestly lucky that my son survived since it went undiagnosed with him.  My last pregnancy was on lock down and it suuucckckkeeeeed. Sucked. Bad.  I couldn’t eat anything I wanted, I had to take medication and test my blood all the time, and ended up delivering early so I could avoid getting on insulin.  None of my pregnancies have been normal or easy, but I still loved it.

When I am pregnant I feel soooo special.  It sets me apart from other people, and I have a connection that no one else in the world has, not even my husband.  I am never alone, and I always have someone to talk to - even if that someone is an embryo the size of a pea.  We share thoughts and feelings, and pregnancy keeps me grounded while allowing me to fly through my imagination.  Feeling a life you created move inside you is life altering.  The first kick is so amazing, and always reminded me that I was doing something important that not everyone can do.  I made a person.  I was housing something special and private and miraculous.  I don’t think I will ever be able to fully explain why or how much I loved pregnancy, but it is a time in my life that I will remember as being fulfilling, and pushing through the pain and toughness makes me proud for my strength.  I have never felt as beautiful in my life as when I was 8 months pregnant, no longer fitting into my clothes, and radiating life and love.

At this point I felt like a fat trucker, so I decided to dress like one!Society and pregnancy, well, not a great combination.  You lose all sense of privacy when you are pregnant.  People are drawn to you in very strange ways, and I had more interactions while pregnant than I could ever recall.  Men get way weird around pregnant women.  I remember when I was pregnant the first time no one would believe me that men followed me around.  They would never talk to me, just follow me around.  While shopping with my mom once this guy stayed within a 20 foot radius of me FOREVER.  He wasn’t even shopping, he was just hovering.  It’s like I was growing a magnet for men or something.  Maybe it’s because they knew I put out, I don’t know.  I was constantly told I had the pregnancy glow...but I don’t know, it was weird.  Women just stared.  I will admit that I had a huge belly, like epicly huge.  No one touched me like they do to other women, but they did talk to me about crazy things.  Some of the memorable questions I have been asked are: “Are you having twins?  Are you sure you’re not?”  “Are you still with the dad?”  “Was it planned?”  “You look really uncomfortable.”  “Do you still have sex?”  “Can I see your belly?”  “Have your boobs gotten bigger?”  “You’re huge.”  “You look like you’re ready to pop.”  “Having that baby any day, huh?”  That last one is especially nice to hear when you are in your sixth month and have 12 weeks to go *insert sarcasm font here*.  Just so you know, ALL of those things were asked by strangers.  And ALL of those things are wildly inappropriate to say to a pregnant woman.  If you want to say something, tell her she looks beautiful.  Say it sincerely and move on.  It will make her day and you won’t be remembered as a creeper.  

That’s the basics.  It’s a complicated time with an incredible range of emotions and experiences.  It’s rewarding and totally worth it...but one of the craziest things anyone could ever do.  Ever.  

 Do you have any pregnancy questions?  Anything weird you want to know?  Ask me anything, I would love to share anything I may have left out!

Twitter: @JenSquard
Facebook: @jenswedhinphotography
Email: mangotreelover@hotmail.com
Or leave me a comment!  I would honestly LOVE to hear your thoughts!