Time for an update. I know I haven't done this since Valentine's Day but this is my first day off since then. Truth be told, I had yesterday off but my head was a bit foggy from Saturday night to clearly write an update. I hope everyone had a great Oscar night. Oscar parties are the same as Super Bowl parties except instead of beer and melted cheese on all the food you get wine and room temperature cheese, ( the stuff that looks like it's melting is called Brie). There are Oscar pools just like football pools. I scored a 9 correct in my pool. Instead of everyone putting up money for the pool, all you have to do is write down what you want to win(under $10) the person with the lowest score buys for the person with the highest score. I choose Mega Million Lotto tix if I was to win. I was hoping that if I won that the person that lost would be someone that doesn't like me and then I would win the Mega Millions with the tickets that they bought. That would be my luck, buy tickets for someone that I hated and they win.

So let's recap the Oscars a bit. The Departed scored big, very big. Best Picture and Best Director. Martin Scorsese winning his first award after being a bridesmaid so many times. Scorsese knows how to do mob films I guess it was the luck of the Irish mob that got him the win. The Departed is a great film, I went out and bought the DVD the day it came out. You have to love a movie that features music by the Rolling Stones, the Dropkick Murphy's, and Van Morrison. The movie is a remake of a Japanese film about the mob in Hong Kong. Who knew that Hong Kong had an Irish mop? It only goes to show you that the Irish are everywhere.

Best Supporting Actor went to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. I saw this film also, it's a very funny film and you should add it to your Netflix list. Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Hudson proved that the people that vote for American Idol don't know jack.

Ok, enough about the Oscars. How about a little baseball. Big news out of Tampa, Derick Jeter and Alex Rodriquez are not dating. Other then the Pittsburgh Pirates we are family team does it matter if everyone one the team gets along? That's the beauty of men's sports. Guys don't care who they play with as long as they get the job done. Women on the other hand don't like to play with someone they don't like. For example the 2004 Red Sox. After the World Series they were on Queer Eye. Even the stars of the show thought the Sox were gay. Cowboy Up, yeah you see what I mean. There are so many Brokeback Mountain, Village People jokes in that team motto to mention here, but if you want to you can e-mail them to Murphy, I'm sure he would love to hear from you.

So when did Valentine's Day become a second Christmas? Back in the day ( when you get old you get to say that, alot, and about everything.) a box of candy or a couple of flowers did the trick. Now it's diamonds. Have you seen the television ad blitz the past few weeks. I can't get the jingle, Every kiss begins with Kay's out of my head. Today will be a great Valentine's Day with the snow falling and people trying to still go out to dinner. The other night on the TV show The Class, they had almost the same scenario, the snow was falling and no one could get to the person they wanted to be with. At one point in the show they talked about what the worst Valentine's Day each one could remember. So what's your worst? Mine had to be fourth grade. Remember when you were young and you got the big box of valentines for your class. You start right in with your friends, using only the best of the box for those guys. Next up were the not so pretty girls, leaving the hotties till last. Well everything was going to plan until I ran out of valentines. My sister Joanne had to make about four or five valentines for me out of red and pink construction paper. they were the nicest valentines anyone in the class would be getting and I had to give them to the hot girls, how humiliating.

As for my best Valentine's Day I guess it would be a toss up between the year I sent a girl a dozen long stem red roses, ( at the time there were two of us trying to win her over, the other guy sent a dozen roses also, but not the long stem kind) the florist that I used, yes florist because back in the day (see above) Price Chopper didn't sell flowers, OK where was I, oh yeah, the florist I used ran out of red roses so they substituted three dozen yellow roses. What I lost in color I made up for in volume. Needless to say neither one of us ended up with the girl. The other memorable Valentines Day was just last year when I had the pleasure of taking this young woman out to dinner. We went to the Old Dublin Inn for a late dinner, the crowd had thinned a bit but it was still crowed. We got a table down stairs which was fine. It was quiet down there and very romantic. The kitchen door is in that room so we saw the waitstaff coming and going. Mike the bartender came down to pick up an order from the bar and almost fell over when he saw my date. The perfect reaction to a perfect night.

So what am I doing this Valentines Day? At this point the highlight may be shoveling snow or writing amusing blogs for all the rest of you alone on Valentine's Day or watching The Departed on dvd.

As you can tell Valentine's Day is not one of my favorite holidays. I seem to do much better with the women on Christmas or St. Patrick's Day. So let's laugh about February 14th and look forward to March 17th when all the women love Steve.

Christmas good

Irish 2000 better

St. Patrick's Day the best

In my best Grantland Rice. On a rain soaked gridiron under a dark and stormy Miami night, The Indianapolis Colts proved that they could win the big game, as they powered over the monsters of the midway in Super Bowl XLI. Payton Manning passed his team to their first Super Bowl victory since they slipped out of Baltimore in the dark of night. The Bears, a seven point underdog electrified the game with the first opening kickoff return for a touchdown in Superbowl history. They should have quit when they were ahead. Although the Colts gave the Bears every chance they could, a missed extra point ( Tony Romo screaming at his TV, "Who's laughing now, Huh, who's laughing now!!") and the Super Bowl hero place kicker Adam Vinatieri missing a chip shot field goal. Max Grossman could do no right for the bears. A fumbled snap here a slip there, and his passing; Grossman's passes had more hang time then the Bears punts. This game had a great first quarter but slowly turned into a mismatch. Early in the third quarter the outcome was set and only the change of scores for football pools held any excitement. How many people lost money on Vinateiri's missed shot at the end of the first half?

As for the party ( Pete claims it to be the 27th ) we have moved up in class. Uncle Mike has finished off his basement into a charming family room complete with a 52" HDTV. Mike picked up the wins for the first two quarters of the game and a few nickles in the poker game. I guess Katie will be getting a Valentines gift after all. A statement that brought jeers from his Aunt and cousin.

Mike getting advice from Uncle John, " I'd stay, but that's why I'm Mr. Vegas"

A camera and pretty girls. Did anyone think a Curran would not be having his picture taken.

The other part of Super Bowl games, the TV ads. At a couple of Million per thirty seconds, the ads during the Super Bowl get as much talk as the game itself. As usual, the Bud ads were great. My favorite was the rock, paper, scissors. Followed by the wedding auction. Sierra Mist wasted money that they could just as easily sent to me.

Good news, pitchers and catchers start in two weeks and it's only 40 days till St. Patty's.

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY
I hope everyone enjoys the day. I'm going old school today. The boys and I are off to Uncle Mike's for a day of football, poker( nickel/dime and we still yell at each other like we were 16 and it was all the money we had), good eats and beer. Did I mention beer? I will update tomorrow all about the party, the game and the winnings and losing of poker. Until then here are a couple of links you might like viewing.
Sean's page www.curranstat.com
The Mini Millis' can be seen at;
http://web.mac.com/chrismillis/iWeb/The%20Boys/The%20Mini%20Mills.html

I know it's a long link but I want to make sure you have it all.
Till tomorrow, Go Bears! (still a NFC guy)