Bear Down

While grabbing brunch yesterday with Ducati I noticed that ESPN was doing a special on the NFC/AFC championship game.  Upon further investigation, they were doing a "sport science" segment on the physics of Devon Hester's kick returns.  This sounds legitimate enough if I stop the description there.  The problem is, I just can't bring myself to do that.  The kicker:  they were comparing the speed/strength read-outs of the Devon Hester analysis against... a real grizzly bear.  No, I'm not being figurative here, they had a bear in the studio.

This immediately struck me as essentially the SNL sketch the "Superfans" come to life in 2011.  "Who do you like in the Bears vs. Giants on Sunday... well, I have a question... are these real Giants?"

I have a friend in DC who works for ESPN and I broke down and sent her a snarky text message.  She noted that when you have big sporting events that have huge lead-in advertising value it is sometimes hard to fill all of the air time.  I noted that this doesn't explain why there was a live bear in the ESPN studios surrounded by "scientists".  She did't respond, at least not yet.

In any event, Go Bears today.  I wish I was going to be dragging Boondock along to century city to watch me shout at televisions while wearing a Bears jersey but alas, I'll have to settle for Ducati.  That's a painful sentence to write, ouch.  The above bear story never would have made it to the inter-web if I had just been able to share it with the one person that I wanted to hear it.  Worse yet, I am incapable of conveying how indignant I was via text.  Le sigh.

There's a timeout... where?... on the field!

-I Heart Palindromes