Sunday, February 3, 2008

An Acknowledgement Of Super Bowl XLII

I was noticing that stats were down on blog visitors and I realized that people were probably watching Super Bowl XLII. I hadn't planned to watch it since without the Colts there I didn't have a dog in the fight. I turned it on just before half time but fortunately with Tivo I was able to skip most of the monotonous moving around the field and players banging into each other, which is to say, the actual playing of the game.

I focused on just getting the gist of it all and looking at some of the commercials. I might have watched for any good looking players but I don't know of any players on either team that would have drawn me to watching them. I don't care for Tom Brady's looks and neither of the Manning brothers has ever done anything for me. The Mannings and Britney Spears just remind me there is something strange going on down there in the bayou country.

With the commercials, I liked seeing Justin Timberlake get sucked and then knocked out by a TV for Pepsi. I was a little ambivalent about seeing Richard Simmons avoid being struck by a car thanks to Bridgestone tires. With Senator Bill Frist and James Carville for Coke I was just confused. Does Coke really think the people watching the game would have any idea who they are and how they were in any way relevant to a soft drink?

I suppose this year's culturally insensitive ad would be SalesGenie.com, using a patently offensive stereotype in panda-face.

There was more bashing of Cavemen by advertisers, this time by Bud Light. Why do major brands of beer even bother running commercials? Does anyone change their beer buying preference based on these? You could force me to watch a thousand hours of Bud Light commercials (although don't think I wouldn't put up a fight) and I would never drink that swill.

My favorite ad in the first half was Brady Quinn consuming some kind of edible something or other called Myoplex. He's so boyishly cute. My favorite in the second half was right at the end. A guy walks through the city carrying his red Dell notebook computer. Along the way he gets groped, kissed, and his butt patted by strangers. I wish this sort of behavior was more socially acceptable. Maybe I would get in less trouble.