Super Bowl Recap

Just some thoughts …

* Had a lot of food with my cheese yesterday. Seriously, I ingested a whole bag of pop chips, a plateful of nachoes, eight fairly sizable chicken wings (each, like, half the size of my fist), a half-pint of cookie dough ice cream, and a liter-and-a-half of Diet Coke. Good thing, my heart says, the Super Bowl comes once a year.

* Didn’t O’Reilly seem uncharacteristically nervous during his live interview with Obama before the game? I liked how he shot down Obama’s talking points with respectful disdain.

* Aguilera’s “Star Spangled Banner”: the epitome of style over substance, as I just heard editorialized on the radio. Man do I hate this type of singing, with all the runs and riffs and breathy, throaty vocal stops. One of the reason I hate those American Idol auditions (the ones that are “good”, that is).

* Game was paradoxically great and dull at the same time. Great, I suppose, because of the Steelers second-half comeback, but dull because no one had a stellar, stand-out performance. The big plays weren’t really “big”, just kinda slightly larger than normal, if you know what I’m saying. Still, we were saying with 2:30 left in the game that Pittsburgh was going to win it.

* Hey, I predicted here the Packers would win, 27-24, and the final was 31-25. Called the winning team and off only by 5 points! That’s pretty darn good for an amateur like myself. Let me pat my back a moment!

* I can’t comment on the half-time show as I know nothing of the Black Eyed Peas or their songs, other than what my 6- and 2-year-olds sing and dance to. Did notice some technical issues, though (mic levels off, part of a ramp not lit up, etc).

* Commercial by and large were a disappointment this year.

* That being said, I did like three: (1) The Bud Light commercial where the hyper home decorator guy redoes the couples kitchen by only placing a bucket of Bud Light on the counter. (2) The one where the superrich are breaking out of their “prison of luxury.” (3) The guy that has to zip around trashing everyone’s PC, laptop, and iPhone because he accidentally hit “Reply All.”

* But the majority of commercials just turned me off. The Doritos commercials were repulsive. The Pepsi commercials were violent – lots of cans being thrown at heads and groins. And why does every single commercial have to feature a man who’s an unshaved doofus? Is that the way corporate marketing departments see us? And let’s have a moratorium on the slapstick schtick. It just ain’t funny anymore.

* My wife feels very strongly, and I agree, I think, that the game should start earlier than 6:30. Like, 3 o’clock. If nothing else, for the little ones. I hear the argument all the time about the World Series, that there should be at least one day game, because fathers can’t introduce their sons to the thrill of it all when the games last three hours past the child’s bedtime. So, I kinda weakly agree. Earlier game good. Late game bad.

* Overall, we had a good time. Our friend left a little depressed that her team lost. As a condolence I can only say that they were in it until the last minute of the game, and that the Steelers have been in the Big Game 8 times, more than any other NFL team, and have a winning percentage of 75%. Not bad, not bad at all. We’ll see them in the playoffs next year, and maybe again in the Super Bowl.