Super Boooooooooooooooooowl

Super Bowl Sunday is, of course, the uniquely American holiday tradition that emerged in my lifetime, evolving into a cross between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Like Halloween, it is totally opt-in and allows participation with varying degrees of intensity. Like Thanksgiving, it is food-based but replacing extended family with friends. For the record, Clare and I had our own party with turkey hot dogs, deviled eggs (mmmmm), cole slaw, baked beans, and brownies.

The game was pretty good for a Super Bowl, but the best moments were the national anthem by Jennifer Hudson, making her first appearance since her family tragedy. The worst moment was when #92 of the Steelers mugged a Cardinal following a 4th quarter punt. John Madden, the dean of sportscasters, commented that he should have been ejected from the game. #92 is the same guy that set a Super Bowl record by returning an interception 100 yards for a touchdown on the last play of the first half. How quickly we go from hero to chump.

There were no great commercials this year but a few awful ones. The worst was by teleflora, a flower seller, in which a woman's happiness at receiving flowers in a box turns to horror when the flowers start spewing personal insults. Many commercials inflict cartoon physical violence on live action humans, but emotional abuse crosses the line in my book. The commercial was successful in that I do remember the name teleflora, however, the result will be a life long boycott.

The Budweiser horse ads were a little sad. In one, a horse tries to act like a dog my fetching a tree branch. His human oppressor is not impressed. In another, a horse escapes his barn and journeys to a distant circus to see his girlfriend. Chaos follows and you know it's going to end badly.

The most popular ad, as reported on my TV machine, was the Doritos crystal ball. A man believes it makes predictions and predicts free Doritos. After vandalizing a vending machine by throwing the ball and breaking the glass, the prediction comes true. Cut to a second man throwing the ball after predicting a job promotion. The ball hits his boss in the crotch... ut oh. People eat this stuff up.

The most inappropriate ad was by an internet job site, which showed small snippets of people being dissatisfied at work, over and over and over again. So the message is, in the middle of the worst recession in 60 years, find a new job if your boss/coworkers annoy you. Perhaps I missed the point. They were trying to be humorous, not realistic. But they failed because I don't even remember who ran the ad.

My favorite ad was the godaddy.com Danica Patrick shower ad, which was a take off on the American Pie webcam scene. The ad was riveting if you are a nerd and/or a huge Danica Patrick fan. (Advice to IndyCar... fire the other drivers and just have Danica drive around the track by herself.)

Coincidentally, my drenaud.com domain registration is expiring and I am transferring it from Network Solutions to Go Daddy. Was it Danica or their lower prices that motivated me?

Back when Walter Cronkite was America's news anchor, he ended a broadcast by reporting the previous day's Super Bowl score, and then added "an event which has no significance".