Review of Super Bowl XXXVIII

I suppose I should be sad that the Carolina Panthers lost last night, given that I live in Carolina. But I’m not. I’m overjoyed. The local news people having been annoying the hell out of me lately with their coverage of our “Killer Winter Storm!” – three inches of snow and a bit of sleet that paralyzed the state for a week. Now they must be sad they can't geek out over “our Super Bowl Champion Panthers”. Good. The North Carolina state sports are basketball, NASCAR and pro-wrestling anyway. If Ric Flair wins the Heavyweight Title a 26th time, they can geek out all they want.

Last night though, after the Super Bowl, they had a local reporter in Charlotte, live, and people were honking their horns and saying “Woooo!” No, it wasn’t footage from before the Super Bowl. It wasn't footage from the NFC championship. It was live, shortly after the Carolina Panthers lost Super Bowl XXXVIII. I don’t get it. Why are these people having fun? Don’t they know the Panthers LOST? I guess it doesn’t hurt too much when the bandwagon crashes.

What I learned from the Super Bowl XXXVIII commercials:

1. It's not okay to smoke marijuana or cigarettes, but it’s fine and dandy to drink plenty of Budweiser and swallow strange new drugs that could give you bloody poop and four-hour boners.

2. Mike Ditka is willing to admit to millions of people that his ding dong can't get hard without the help of strange new drugs.

3. It's okay to download free music off the internet if you drink Pepsi.

4. You need ID to buy a case of Pepsi at a convenience store in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, especially if you’re a grizzly bear.

5. If you drive a Cadillac fast enough through the desert, you can cause an atomic explosion.

6. Neato new gimmicks on cars are neato.

What I learned from the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show:

1. Kid Rock might be eligible for some kind of award for going above and beyond the call of duty by actually singing into a live microphone. What I don’t understand is, if the band is going to mime, why does the sound guy have to set an unplugged mic in front of the guitarist’s speaker cabinet?

2. Apparently standing on a moving stage and pretending to sing is “hard work”, because we always hear about how hard famous people work.

3. The Jacksons have put on the exact same show for twenty years. “Okay guys, here’s my idea for the show – we’ll have Janet dancing in the front and center, and a bunch of hot women and homosexuals dancing behind her in unison. How’s that?”

4. Rappers have stupid names these days. What happened to names like Grandmaster Flash and Fab 5 Freddy and Doug E. Fresh and Flava Flav? Last night we saw a guy named after a horse and a guy with a name that sounds like you’re trying to potty train your two year old – “Go pee pee! Go pee diddy like a big boy!”

5. If Justin Timberlake dies, good.

And on to the actual game: Excellent football. The game was actually more entertaining than the commercials for once. In fact, I was pleased with the whole post season this year. After watching the Steelers all season, I’m not hard to please. Quarterbacks who can complete passes, receivers who can catch, running backs who can run, secondaries that can cover receivers, offensive lines that can block – golly gee willikers! So, I guess from my perspective it’s not really saying much about the post season. But it was a great post season. Four stars.

ps. Carbs kick ass.