LIKE A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT

SOUTH TENTH STREET ON A SUNDAY MORNING

Monday, 9:00 AM.  17 degrees F at the ferry dock, 16 on the back porch.  Wind NNE, calm with light to moderate gusts.  The sky is overast and cloudy and it is snowing lightly.  The humidity is 85% and the barometer falling, currently at 26.86".  About 3" of new snow has fallen.  It looks like a day that could go either way.
   We watched Super Bowl 50 on CBS yesterday evening.  As the whole world knows by now, the Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers, 24 to 10.  It was a boring, almost endless game, devoid of any really exciting plays and overrun with personal fouls.
   Endless and needless commentary and flashbacks interrupted the flow of the game.  The halftime show was mostly crude and devoid of artistry.  The commercials were relentless, and every time one came on it reinforced my dislike of  televised football.  The play action was interrupted so often and for such long periods of time that it was difficult for the viewer to stay in the game.  I can only assume that the play is mostly filmed and the commercials inserted to make it really a semi-live broadcast, as the players could not possibly stay engaged in the game with so many and lengthy interruptions.
   I have to admit that I don't understand most of the commercials because they do not directly identify the product or say much about it; they are mainly stream of consciousness presentations and devoted to blowing things up.
   Shakespeare must have been anticipating American football commercials when he coined the phrase, "Like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing."