Like millions of other people, I watched the Super Bowl this past Sunday. I couldn’t care less about football (or sports in general), but I enjoy the commercials. In fact, that’s the only reason I watch the game. (I didn’t even know who was playing until a few days beforehand!)

I’ve realized, however, that I’m really just wasting my time. In a post about the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh computer (the original Mac commercial was shown during the Super Bowl in 1984), gaming journalist Jeremy Parish made the following point:

When you stop to think about it, the idea that people sit around watching hours and hours of a sport they don’t necessarily enjoy just to have corporations drop millions of dollars to sell them things is downright baffling.

That really hit home. Why am I wasting three to four hours of my life, just to watch a grand total of five to ten minutes of commercials? More importantly is the fact that all of the commercials appear on Hulu and similar sites either during the game or shortly thereafter. Watching the entire Super Bowl just for that is stupid, and I’m annoyed with myself that it took me so long to realize it.

While I enjoy hanging around with friends and family during the game, I just don’t think it’s worth it in light of this new epiphany, as it were. I’m sure there’s much better ways of spending my time. Next year, I’ll pass.

(Get it? Football? Pass? Shut up.)

One thing that myself and many other AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO®) are getting really tired of is the increasing amount of stickers in recent sets. Back in the day, just about any special brick had printing on it, be it a road sign, computer terminal, or logo. There were a few stickers here and there, but most special bricks were printed. Nowadays, however, it’s the complete opposite. Printed bricks are few and far between, and those blasted stickers are everywhere! Even pieces that used to be printed (like the 2×2 round tiles with the Imperial symbol from Star Wars) now use stickers instead! This is irritating for many reasons, the most obvious being that stickers aren’t as durable as the original printed bricks. Plus, even for skilled modelers, the slightest misapplication of a sticker can make the resulting piece stand out like a sore thumb.

So what’s the cause? Laziness? Cheaper production costs? Probably a bit of column A and column B. Either way, we’re shit outta luck.