WHY YOU MIGHT AS WELL WATCH THE SUPER BOWL

Two-thirds of Americans watched at least part of Super Bowl 56. However, most went on to other things. Spend your Sunday as you normally would anyway.

Go to church.
Shop.
Watch your friends/family play softball.
Spend a day at the beach.
Hike up a mountain.
See Netflix or go to a movie.
Get an early dinner at a restaurant, if on the East Coast.
Or a leisurely lunch at your favorite Sunday place.
Etc.

In other words, you can do all the above, and still watch the Super Bowl at 1:30PM ET. On the East Coast it will be getting dark. On the West Coast it will be past mid-afternoon. Even in Hawaii the start time is 1:30PM. For those who just don't like to watch sports, the commercials are almost worthwhile. Plus, after all of that, you'll be a better conversationalist in your everyday life.

Here is something that should interest you. Phoenix hosts both the Super Bowl and WM Golf Tournament, the latter, which completes a 4-day tournament today, is known as The Greatest Show on Grass. At one time it was called the Arizona Open, played at the Phoenix Country Club.

In 1987 a move was made to the TPC Scottsdale and was renamed the Phoenix Open.
A particular attraction was that they encouraged spectators to cheer and hoot.

The loudest is the 16th, which is kind of like a coliseum in both shape and crowd noise.
The Guinness World Record of 142.2 decibels in a sport stadia occurred in 2014 at Arrowhead Stadium.
The 16th at Scottsdale is said to approach that number, but with only 17,000.
At all other tournaments, staff wave signs warning the crowd to keep quiet.

Then like all PGA golf tournaments, they were allowed to add a sponsor to pay the bills, and in 2003 became the FBR Phoenix Open, for investment bank Friedman Billings Ramsey. Got worst in 2010 when Waste Management, Inc. took it over. I mean, how can you identify with a golf tournament linked to waste management? Yet, there was an emphasis on environmentalism. Anyway, changing the name to WM Phoenix Open did help.
This tournament draws the most people, with a 2020 world record 719,179 in four days. The max around the world usually draws less than 250,000 for that 4-day period.
Click on this for all the details. Players have already teed off, and the final three will finish soon after Noon ET.

Incidentally, if you were wondering, Glendale and Scottsdale are in the Phoenix metro area. The overall population is approaches 5 million, but Maricopa Country, which includes Phoenix, is the 4th largest county in the U.S. with 4.4 million, and has around 34% Republicans, 34% Independents and 30% Democrats.

If you really, really want to watch something other than the Super Bowl, there is the 2PM (ET) Puppy Bowl XIX. Will show on a number of channels, like Animal Planet, TBS, Discovery, etc. Three hours featuring 122 cute pups...and cats...from 67 shelters across 34 states. It is said that all the puppies and kittens that have participated in previous Puppy Bowls got adopted. For the dedicated, there is a Pre-Game at 1PM ET only on Animal Planet, channel 329/1329 on Spectrum Honolulu.

Also at 2PM ET on Sunday, a battle of the only two women's NCAA basketball teams, #3 LSU at #1 South Carolina on ESPN. One problem for LSU is that they have only played one ranked opponent this year. Their strength of schedule is 115th in the country. South Carolina has beaten many of the very best, like Stanford, Connecticut and UCLA.

How's this for sacrilege? After all the hoopla I presented this week, I will be at around hole #8 on the West Loch Golf Course when Super Bowl 57 kicks off today. Yes, golf, with some margarita. I will, though, be recording the Super Bowl.

For Super Bowl Eve I had one of my favorite dishes, Pork Tonkatsu with sashimi, hot sake and cold beer.

Returning from golf, I will start with nachos and 360 Showtime (read my posting of 5 February 2023 to see the ingredients), which is the prime cocktail of State Farm Stadium, and can then at some point have that Kansas City Strip Steak, which is another name for a New York Strip Steak, which is also mostly called New York Steak in the USA.

So anyone can do anything she or he wants, and still watch the Super Bowl today. Just have a video recorder if you're otherwise busy. Thus:

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

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HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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