Super Bowl Stuff

Congratulations have to go out to the Steelers (and a hearty “fuck you” to the Cardinals) for winning last night. Obviously I watched the game, and have a couple thoughts I wanted to share.

First of all, yeah, the Eagles probably would have lost to the Steelers the way they played, so I can’t really get all that upset about things. It was pretty painful watching Roethlisberger lead the Steelers on a game winning drive in the last three minutes of the game when two weeks ago McNabb had the same opportunity and couldn’t get it done. Last night made it pretty clear why Roethlisberger has two Superbowl rings and I’m still hoping Donovan gets traded to the Bears.

I loved the roughing the holder penalty called against Arizona. That was definitely something I had never seen before, though I must admit that I would love to see more teams take runs at the holder on field goals and extra points. Football is getting boring; some unnecessary violence could reenergize it.

Santonio Holmes, during all that postgame stuff, had a great line that I think merits some attention. Channeling the ghost of Freddie Mitchell (he’s dead, right?), Holmes declared that he stepped up on that final drive because “I wanted to continue to be great.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Al Michaels said something that really pissed me off. I don’t remember the context, or when in the game it happened, it may have even been after the game, but anyway, Michaels declared that football was the national pastime. No, it’s not. Baseball is. I don’t care about ratings or revenues, football has nowhere near the place in American culture that baseball does. No one writes poems about football, NFL players aren’t in classic songs, there have been maybe three good football movies, none of which measure up to The Natural, Field of Dreams, or Pride of the Yankees. Football is just a sport; baseball is a part of American history.

Even though pretty much everyone watches the Superbowl, other stations still need to throw up something. ABC went with a shitload of Wipeout, which seems like just a more bland, American MXC. A bunch of other stations went with a different approach, showing nonsense like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, What Women Want, and the Devil Wears Prada. I wonder what demographic they were trying to lure away from NBC.

But the best Superbowl alternative, which was fortunately replayed like six times yesterday, was Puppy Bowl V. Basically, they threw a bunch of puppies in a pit that was decorated like a football field, threw in some stuffed animals, and let the dogs go nuts. Of course when Michael Vick did this he ended up in jail, but when Animal Planet does it PETA is silent. Whatever, fuck PETA. Anyway, there were a couple highlights from Puppy Bowl. First, the puppy named Eli got bitched around a lot, legitimately tackled by some other dogs. Another puppy, Griffey, got ejected for just beating the hell out of the other dogs. Hopefully Bad Newz Kennels had some scouts there. But the best part about Puppy Bowl was the commentary. Harry Kalas was doing play by play! And it was every bit as awesome as you would think. Seriously, it’s February, I’ll listen to Kalas call pretty much anything at this point. Pitchers and catchers still seems so far away.

And there were commercials. Meh. The Doritos crystal ball commercial seems to have gone over really well, winning The USA Today’s prize, but I was underwhelmed. Yeah, a guy got hit in the balls, but that’s hardly groundbreaking. Budweiser disappointed too; the horses were awesome when they were playing football; doing anything else is just mediocre. And can we stop with this Great American Lager nonsense? You’re owned by a Belgian company, and no one is being fooled. Pepsi also came up short: the Pepsuber one was awful, and the side by side generation one was only slightly better. Having Belushi and Jack Black side by side was pretty terrible; I’m pretty much a huge Jack Black fan, and I can’t say he’s anywhere near Belushi’s level. Also, fuck Carlos Boozer. He has time to be in an Overstock.com commercial, but not to actually play basketball and be a worthwhile second round pick for my fantasy team? What the hell?

Some other stuff happened this weekend independent of the Superbowl. Sarah Palin came to DC, but blessedly kept her mouth shut. Rush Limbaugh is still an idiot. Scientists cloned the extinct Pyrenean Ibex, but it died in seven minutes. Spaniards are close to cloning a fighting bull, hopefully they’ll have more success. Michael Phelps got caught smoking pot, and people were outraged. But fortunately nothing is going to happen to him, because NBC set Olympics ratings records when he was swimming. If he wants to, he’ll be back in London, WADA be damned. Seriously, all he did for the last four years was swim; if he wants to smoke every once in a while there’s no reason to stop him.

But the biggest thing coming out of this weekend is the first trailer for the GI Joe movie. Oh man, it’s going to be the coolest movie ever. Honestly, I probably would have bought a movie ticket just to watch the preview. Seriously, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes going head to head, Duke and Ripcord blowing shit up, the trailer was incredible. And the movie is going to be even better, I just know it. Seriously, I’m so excited for this.