Famous People Were Not In Top Form, and More: Super Bowl XLV's Top 10 Moments
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Here are ten outstanding things about Super Bowl XLV, in no particular order, with videos and all. And by "outstanding" I don't mean "awesome"—I mean, "stood out." They are including, but not limited to: Christina Aguilera's performance malfunction, a good-looking famous chick shoving popcorn into the face of a good-looking famous dude, the right people winning and losing, and, of course, Brett Favre. Because it's football. And so Brett Favre is involved, always. He's like the Chuck Norris of football. Only without the Chuck Norris part.
Anyway, here goes:
1. The commercials—on the Internet. I only watched half of it, and could still get all the commercials anytime I wanted. For instance: I didn't see the Eminem Chrysler spot live, but saw people Facebooking about it—yes, Facebooking—and so I just Googled "Eminem Chrysler spot." Found it in 1.3 seconds. And I was just as cool as everyone else. (And since it went up around 7 p.m. last night, the video has gotten 620,00 views. And counting. It got 100,000 in the last hour. Holy crap.
2. A-Rod getting fed popcorn. FOX shows shots of celebrities in the celebrity zone. One gratuitous shot shows A-Rod getting fed popcorn by Cameron Diaz.
3. Debating whether or not A-Rod and C-Dazzle are in a real relationship. Or is it a just fun for two hot, high-profile people to feed each other popcorn in public? Katie and I had, like, a five-point debate on the subject. I won't tell you who took which side, but let's just say that she won.
4. People who bought seats not getting seats. Some 400 fans bought $900 tickets. Their $900 seats weren't ready. Or didn't exist. Or something. They were comped three times face value, at $2,700. Solid. But some were ticked because they paid a scalper $3,000 for them. Which is stupid anyway. But the bigger question: How do you sell seats that don't exist? Obviously, it's a little about the money, but it's more about the experience these people thought they were going to have. And then the horrible experience they had instead. They took off work. They flew who knows how far. They paid for hotel rooms. Rock on, Dallas.
5. Awesome sports writer analysis. After the game, Jeff Pearlman posted as his Facebook status: I'm so proud of the Packers for overcoming so much adversity. Really, they've overcome adversity. So much adversity. And, if you haven't yet heard, they've overcome an amazing amount of adversity. They have—the adversity was tough. But they overcame it.
6. The halftime show. Mostly just because it involved the Black Eyed Peas, which was mostly cool because they weren't over the age of 50. No, the singing wasn't great. I thought bringing in Slash and Usher was a nice touch. I was disappointed Bieber didn't make an appearance. (Though I did thoroughly enjoy his and Ozzie's BestBuy spot. "What's a Bieber?" "It looks like a girl.")
7. Terry Bradshaw's awkward interview with Ben Roethlisberger. For the uninformed who don't follow or care about sports: TB holds all kinds of Steelers records. BR is the Steeler's awesome current quarterback. He's well on his way to breaking all of TB's records, and TB is a Steelers legend. "I want you to break my records," TB says. Not convincingly. The two have made up recently, but for a time, they were, well, not friends.
8. Big Ben. You probably know that BR is the guy who was in all the headlines earlier this year for allegedly having less-than-consensual relations with a young lady. He's not been the most popular sports figure since then. Probably right up there on Least Popular Lists with Tiger, LeBron, and the 2008 Michael Vick. But even still, I hate to see someone fail as miserably as he did last night. He pulled it together and the Steelers made it a game—way more of a game than I thought they would—but BR was not the BR that has won three Super Bowls. It hurts me, anytime I see athletes fail on such a grand stage.
8b. Christina Aguilera. Speaking of failing on a grand stage ... wow. Poor, poor girl. There was a Yahoo! blog up about it within 20 minutes. The YouTube video has already generated more than 2.3 million views. That's as of 8 a.m. this morning, people. Holy crap. I feel worse for her than I do for BR. He'll get plenty more chances. She won't.
9. Aaron Rodgers (pictured). The Good Guy Won. And got named Super Bowl MVP. For a long time, he was That Guy Who Took Over For Brett Favre. He's been emerging from that shadow. This cements him as Green Bay's next great hero. He has a great story. He seems like a genuine guy, a good guy, and I'm already looking forward to next season, to see how this win impacts his game. My guess? In the best way.
9b. Brett Favre. Random thoughts: I know everyone was tire of BF, but the dude was an amazing quarterback in his prime. His whole stupid thing with that Jenn Sterger chick—yeah, OK, not a good call, Brett. And maybe he was retiring and unretiring just for attention, like everyone says. I don't know. But I don't believe that. Sports writers can be stupid, too. Think about it: BF is how old? Forty-something, right? And I know he wears jeans and never shaves, just like Chuck Norris, but that doesn't make him invincible.
The dude was going out there against those man-beasts, those 300-pound defensive linemen who can also run 40 yards in 4.6 seconds or whatever, on a regular basis. No wonder he didn't want to go to training camp. No wonder he thought about retiring a million times. I know it's just a game, and not at all like war the way people want to make it sound sometimes, but BF went out there like a freaking warrior every time. Maybe all those shots did something to his brain, and he couldn't realize it, but the dude was risking death every time he went out there. You don't do that just for attention.
And re: Aaron Rodgers vs. Brett Favre—check out this New York Times blog about it. Without BF, AR doesn't become the Super Bowl XLV MVP.
10. The non-party. All our Wilmington friends were either out of town or busy. The Super Bowl's not a huge deal in the circles we run in around here. So Katie and I watched it together, alone, at home. And you know, we had a blast. We cooked the best meal ever—salmon, potatoes, green beans, pineapple, savignon blanc, and cookies for dessert. Snacked on some Ruffles and French Onion dip. Ate way too much. At halftime, we turned on Netflix and watched a few episodes of That 70's Show Season 1. We caught the last few minutes of the game once Pittsburg decided to make it a game. Felt sorta lame for not going out or anything, but you know, that's all starting to feel more and more overrated. Which, you know, means only one thing: We're getting old.
Oh well. I like it.
Reader Comments (6)
Mention Bieber again and I will never read your blogs again.
Haha, just kidding :) I missed that commercial though..
And Christina, man.. that was a little rough.. but her voice is really awesome, so. Whatever.
Aaron Rodgers, dude. He was pretty awesome. Pulled it together there. All those camera people surrounding him at the end was pretty insane though.
And lastly, yours and Katie's little shindig sounds really fun, and I hope there's some French onion dip left, because that sounds delicious :) Also, no mention of the puppies? Come on.. they had to have barked at their fair share of commercials or something fun..
Haha okay I'll get back to learning about marriage and the Bible now. kbye:)
I'm so glad you included Arod being fed popcorn. That was such a huge highlight of the night, I felt like everyone else was failing to mention it.
And Heidi, let me know what you learn about marriage, I would like an outline constructed and brought to me on Tuesday.
And Brandon, how long have you been making up type in that code!?
I keep making comments and x'ing out then realizing it didn't post. It's kind of a pain, yo!
Haha, Kate, I have no idea. I might have enabled spam-blocking something or other, but don't remember. Maybe Squarespace automatically did it. I was getting a ton of spam.
Heidi—sorry for the Bieber reference. But anytime he gets called a girl on national television ... I mean, how do you not talk about that?
I would also like a copy of your notes on marriage.
And oh yeah—there are some puppy thoughts coming. I would blog more about them, but, well, blogging doesn't really pay all that well.
*Sigh* I do agree; since you were referencing his being called a girl, I will deem this Bieber reference acceptable. Ha, his name is underlined in red. SPELL CHECK DOESN'T KNOW YOU BIEBER!
Okay, sorry. Procrastinating some American history, now. (Good ole Archduke Ferdinand and Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover!)
Unfortunately, I must report to you both that I do not take notes on the marriage lessons. And Katie, I don't think you'd appreciate them. It's mostly about the male leadership role right now.. and I'm sure Brandon would just use that in wonderful ways..
Lastly, money isn't everything Brandon.. Jeez..
Haha, just kidding. Sounds good. I'm just ready to see those little tykes again! (yes, I just referred to your dogs as tykes. Don't ask. I'm gonna go do history now.)
Oh and I agree with Katie's sarcastic comment about the feeding of popcorn.