I managed to avoid most of the tedium of last night's Super Bowl by missing the first 27 minutes. I much more enjoyed celebrating my younger niece's birthday, and got score updates (OK, update) from her brothers. I had no real interest in the outcome, though I am mildly pleased with the Steelers win. AFC bias, I suppose.

By not seeing the start of the game I also seemed to miss all of the top-rated ads, though running down the list on USA Today I don't think I missed too much. I was surprised to see that the Sprint ad about the phone's "anti-theft" qualities wasn't on their list at all. Of the ads I did see, I think that was probably my favorite.

In any event, yesterday was just a pre-cursor to the real meat of the February sports calendar - at least in these parts, when the Pats aren't in the Super Bowl - the Beanpot.

BC plays Northeastern in the early game, which on paper is no contest - BC is ranked #5 nationally, while NU has one win. BC has struggled of late - they lost to us, had to go to OT to beat Lowell, and then lost at UMass on Friday - but they aren't struggling that much, sad to say.

We play Harvard in the nightcap. It'd be a nice time to avenge losing the annual pre-Thanksgiving game, and we are on a tear, with a nation's best 8 game winning streak. I'm still feeling anxious about this game, as the Beanpot is always ripe for an upset, and we seem like the most obvious target.

Laura has a nice reminiscence about the Beanpot and the last time she missed it. I have nothing quite so heart-warming, as I think the last Beanpot I missed was my sophomore year, when we lost to Northeastern in the title game. So not much missed their, either.