Archive for February 8th, 2010

Obligatory Super Bowl Entry, Part 44

Feb

8

2010

The Game

  • I do have some friends who are Colts fans (hi Paul), so I am sure they are not happy about the result. But sports are about cheering for a given team, which implies that you cheer against the other team. As it has worked out, He Who Must Not Be Named is the quarterback for the Colts. So I must root against them. If they had a different quarterback, I might have been rooting for them. So don’t take it personally, Colts fans, that I cheered for the Saints.
  • Yes, I do also root against the Giants.
  • Based on that, the Superbowl was fun to watch. I saw the first quarter and much of the second quarter. I missed halftime and the third quarter. But I got to see the fourth quarter. Apparently, I should have missed the first quarter and watched the third.
  • If I don’t have a vested interest in the game, I pull for the more fun team. If you run a fake punt, you’re good in my book. That’s why I have liked Boise St. By that measure, the Saints came out ahead. Even though they didn’t run any fakes, they did have the onside kick and they did go for it on fourth and goal. I watch football to be entertained. Therefore, I like the team that provides more entertainment – the Saints.
  • The Colts weren’t all bad though. I was pleasantly impressed that they did not use their timeouts at the end of the game. There are few things more annoying in a sporting event than to have the losing team call their timeouts (or, in the case of basketball, purposely foul) when it is hopeless. The Colts had two timeouts remaining, I think, and the Saints had possession with 45 seconds left. The Colts could have made the Saints do three kneel-downs instead of just one, but that would have accomplished nothing other than prolong the agony.

The Ads

  • Do any companies besides Budweiser and Doritos have any money for advertising?
  • How much did those two companies spend on advertising? It seems they had about half the ads.
  • The car ads were boring – not worthy of being Super Bowl material. You’re spending millions of dollars on an ad, it had better be good. There were two exceptions, noted below.
  • The first exception was the Brett Favre ad, the one where he was giving his acceptance speech for being the MVP in the year 2020. The only problem is that you remember that Brett Favre, with gray hair and all, was in that commercial but you don’t remember what the commercial was for. It was funny but there was no (or at least a very weak) tie-in to the product.
  • The second exception to the unentertaining car ads was the Dodge Charger. That was memorable because you spent most of the commercial trying to figure out where it was going and what it was for. Because your brain invested that much in viewing the ad, you don’t forget the punchline. This is known as the “Dodge ad” whereas the Hyundai ad is the “Brett Favre ad”. See the difference? Are you selling Brett Favres or are you selling Hyundais? Plus, the car sounded like a real car (i.e. engine displacement).
  • Dodge Charger – good Man Commercial. Dove something-or-other (body wash?) – bad Man Commercial. They tried, but a Man Commercial needs to be for a Man Product.
  • There are various categories of worst ads, but the one I liked the least was the Audi commercial. There are some people who found the Green Police to be funny, a spoof on some environmental zealots. But I fear that the commercial may have put some ideas into the heads of some bureaucrats somewhere. It’s too close to home to be funny.
  • As is sadly usual for a football game, we had to keep the remote handy due to the presence of children in the room. We skipped most of the movie ads and all of the website domain company ads, even after the kids had gone to bed. I don’t need to see that stuff either.

    • He frustrates the plotting of the shrewd, So that their hands cannot attain success.

    Job 5:12

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